|
|
|
Social engineering cyber attacks up considerably in Q1: FireEye
|
|
|
|
Top Stories |
|
|
|
|
IANS | 25 Jun, 2019
There has been a significant
increase in social engineering attacks globally in the first quarter of
2019, the intelligence-led security company FireEye said on Tuesday,
adding that spoofed phishing attempts, HTTPS encryption in URL-based
attacks and Cloud-based attacks focused on publicly hosted, trusted
file-sharing services are on the rise.
There has been a 26 per
cent increase in malicious URLs using HTTPS, a 17 per cent rise in
phishing attempts, significant increase in file-sharing service
exploitation, and new impersonation techniques in Q1, said the "FireEye
Email Threat Report" that analyzed a sample set of 1.3 billion emails.
"Threat
actors are doing their homework. We're seeing new variants of
impersonation attacks that target new contacts and departments within
organizations," said Ken Bagnall, Vice President of Email Security at
FireEye.
"The danger is these new targets may not be prepared or
have the necessary knowledge to identify an attack. Unfortunately, once
the fraudulent activity is discovered, the targeted organization thinks
they've paid a legitimate invoice, when the transaction was actually
made to an attacker's account," Bagnall said in a statement.
A
typical phishing email impersonates a well-known contact or trusted
company to induce the recipient to click on an embedded link, with the
ultimate goal of credential or credit card harvesting.
During
the Q1, the top spoofed brands across these activities included
Microsoft, with almost 30 per cent of all detections, followed by
OneDrive, Apple, PayPal and Amazon, each within the 6-7 per cent range. In
2018, FireEye reported that URL-based attacks had overtaken
attachment-based attacks as a means of delivery. This trend continued in
Q1.
"Notably, FireEye saw a 26 per cent quarter-over-quarter
increase in malicious URLs using HTTPS. This indicated malicious actors
are taking advantage of the common consumer perception that HTTPS is a
'safer' option to engage on the Internet," said the company. Cloud-based attacks, particularly those leveraging file-sharing services, increased in the first quarter.
"Analysis
of Q1'19 emails showed a dramatic increase in links to malicious files
posted to popular and trusted file-sharing services, such as WeTransfer,
Google Drive and OneDrive. Dropbox was the most commonly used," the
findings showed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
|
66.20
|
64.50 |
UK Pound
|
87.50
|
84.65 |
Euro
|
78.25
|
75.65 |
Japanese
Yen |
58.85 |
56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
|
|
Daily Poll |
|
|
PM Modi's recent US visit to redefine India-US bilateral relations |
|
|
|
|
|
Commented Stories |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|