By Anthony Mortimer, Account Manager, Netutils

Views expressed in this post are original thoughts posted by Anthony Mortimer. These views are his own and in no way do they represent the views of the company.

In the age of commercialised hacking, organisations are experiencing greater frequency and sophistication of attacks than ever before, this is driven simply by the commercial value corporate data represents to criminals. According to Trend Micro 90% of all known successful data breaches in 2012/2013 were attributed to Phishing attacks.

At Netutils we see and talk to a broad range of organisations all with very different views to the risk these threats pose. For many smaller organisations the presence of a firewall and basic security is seen as sufficient; but here’s why these smaller businesses should be concerned.

For a start criminals are now regularly targeting suppliers or customers of big organisations as the staging point to attack the bigger network. More importantly we are seeing a trend for large businesses to dictate security policy to their suppliers for them to continue to trade with them or to win new contracts.

A significant growth area is in the use of targeted Phishing emails and more focussed spear phishing attacks tailored to specific individuals based on pharmed data. These types of attacks are becoming more difficult to mitigate against putting significant stresses on IT department’s budgets.

We have witnessed organisations handling these threats with 2 broad methodologies:

• Deployment of technology to counteract attacks
• End user training

It is generally accepted that by far the greatest risk to the security of your corporate data are your employees themselves who may unwittingly fall victim to phishing attacks. According to industry figures 60% of UK office workers receive a Phishing email at least once a day. In addition the greatest issue with regards to end user training is that for most organisations it is difficult to deliver such a course in a way that will make a real difference. Businesses will often run a single awareness session and hope that will mitigate the risk. Unfortunately Phishing attacks are dynamic, although they follow a similar pattern the content and mechanisms change, unless staff are made aware of these on a regular basis the training deployed may only have value for a few weeks after delivery until a new form of attack is devised.

The second method of combating these threats is via the deployment of technology, this poses real issues to businesses and it can be argued many traditional signature based solutions offer little real protection. This is essentially because they rely on a known database of attack signatures to spot and block an attack. However with the rise in commercial hacking activities self-service malware portals can provide the enterprising hacker with a unique piece of malware for as little as $100 that can sit undetected on corporate machines, up until it is discovered and the signature published.

At Netutils we believe that effective mitigation requires a layered approach to handling these issues. At the heart of our solution set are 2 key elements: ongoing security training via our interactive training platform (PhishAware) and cutting edge signature less technology.

If you have any concerns about the impact of Phishing in your business then do please contact a solutions expert from our team on:

t: 020 8783 3800
e: info@netutils.com