An odd title for a blog post but something that has been on my mind for a while now. We get a fair amount media requests for comments or perspective on phishing stories. This is a good thing. It’s nice to have recognition in your field. Of course 2011 was no shortage of phishing related news. (What’s up RSA, I’m looking at you. I’ve noticed you frequent our website a lot. How about a demo. Couldn’t hurt?)
Most of you have probably heard about the “RSA hack” by now. It was hot news three weeks ago when an employee at RSA fell prey to a targeted phishing attack as explained in this blog post: http://blogs.rsa.com/rivner/anatomy-of-an-attack/ . A couple of issues highlighted in this article really caught my attention.
The article states – “These companies deploy any imaginable combination of state-of-the-art perimeter and end-point security controls, and use all imaginable combinations of security operations and security controls. Yet still the determined attackers find their way in. What does that tell you?“. That tells me that technology by-itself is not the answer to combating spear phishing attacks, it’s also about training the end user to get better at how to be suspicious. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think education is a silver bullet, but it’s more effective than filters and shiny, blinking boxes. I like technologies that give the human another piece of trusted information they can use to evaluate the authenticity of an email. One example is Iconix’s SP Guard. We trained over 1.5 million (using PhishMe). The results show that perioidic training that immersed the subjects in the concept through mock phishing was successful in bringing down susceptibility rates in excess of 60% on average within a few months.
The article aslo discussed how the attackers targeted employees that ” you wouldn’t consider…particularly high profile or high value targets.” There’s a lesson here; security awareness programs should not focus only on executives and systems administrators, but on the entire organization. “Low profile” employees can severely undermine the organization’s assets too, just through a couple of clicks.
Oh yes, and finally, the phishing email was caught by the email client’s junk filter; the victim went out of their way to retrieve the email into the inbox and act on it.
IMHO, end-point security technologies are to phishing attacks (or *APTs) what radars are to a stealth bomber.
Rohyt Belani
*APT term used facetiously 😉