The PhishLabs Blog

Sending a simulated phishing attack is now more accessible than ever thanks to a recent update from Microsoft and the various other free offerings, and many organizations have been pushing them out for years.

Be it once a year, once a quarter, or once a month, these simulated phishing attacks both create awareness for your users and provide valuable feedback to an organization’s security team. However, can simulations on their own be a replacement for training? No. Nein. Non. Nah.

Wait, Mother’s Day was last week? We promise, we didn’t forget, but we did have just a tiny bit of news to announce and that took center stage. But we’re back, and we’re shaking things up!

If you’ve been following our coverage of this year’s Phishing Trends and Intelligence Report, you are aware of the largest key finding: the shift from consumers to enterprise targets.

One of the most frustrating things about cyber crime is how rarely threat actors receive real punishment, particularly when they’re based abroad.

Ransomware. The word strikes fear into the hearts of hospital administrators, local government officers, and small business owners everywhere.

After exploding in 2016, ransomware has been covered extensively by media outlets and security experts, to the point where most organizations have started to take at least some action to mitigate their exposure.

But have these efforts had any impact? And have threat actors continued to rely on their most reliable profit-center?

Welcome back to another episode of Is it a Phish? With today being Star Wars Day (May 4), we have decided to spice this up just a little bit by adding in a special themed lure in just for Sandy. Ah spoilers, it looks like you’re getting one freebie this week.

So here it is… the first one you’ve received. Everything has been building up to this.

You spent days preparing the business case, weeks designing the training program… and it’s finally paid off.

The first user-reported phishing email has hit your inbox.

Last week we published the 2018 Phishing Trends and Intelligence report and presented on the topic during a webinar, and the primary key finding highlighted why enterprise organizations are now the primary target over consumers. The following is a high level look at what our Director of Threat Intelligence, Crane Hassold, discussed during the webinar.

This week we have our office manager Bri, and five suspicious emails to address. Like you, Bri will only have a few moments to quickly look at the lure and decide if it’s suspicious and should be reported, is safe, or is simply spam. We may have a few curve balls along the way, too.

For years the financial industry and email providers have been the top targeted industries, making up more than 50 percent of the total pie. In 2017, this was certainly still the case, but there is a new rapidly rising threat to the software as a service (SaaS) space as well.