• TREND MICRO
  • ABOUT
Search:
  • Latest Posts
  • Categories
    • Android
    • AWS
    • Azure
    • Cloud
    • Compliance
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Cybercrime
    • Encryption
    • Financial Services
    • Government
    • Hacks
    • Healthcare
    • Internet of Everything
    • Malware
    • Microsoft
    • Mobile Security
    • Network
    • Privacy
    • Ransomware
    • Security
    • Social Media
    • Small Business
    • Targeted Attacks
    • Trend Spotlight
    • Virtualization
    • Vulnerabilities
    • Web Security
    • Zero Day Initiative
    • Industry News
  • Our Experts
    • Ed Cabrera
    • Rik Ferguson
    • Greg Young
    • Mark Nunnikhoven
    • Jon Clay
    • William “Bill” Malik
  • Research
Home   »   Industry News   »   Current News   »   Complex email phishing threats make internet security a larger concern

Complex email phishing threats make internet security a larger concern

  • Posted on:May 9, 2011
  • Posted in:Current News, Mobility
  • Posted by:
    Trend Micro
0

Email phishing has been around since the first days of the internet, with cyber criminals long looking to take advantage of the vast base of potential victims likely to fall for a scam.

As internet security has evolved, so have the phishing techniques that try to evade them, according to a recent Computerworld report. Citing security intrusions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the RSA Security division at EMC, the report explained that new phishing threats have become so complex that even the highest-level enterprise users are susceptible.

At Oak Ridge, for example, a phishing attack led to the eventual infiltration of malware throughout the company. The email that unleashed the malicious program was designed to emulate one of Oak Ridge’s human resources memos, prompting many of the 570 employees who received it to download a malicious file, according to the report.

This is just an example of the many complex phishing scams that threaten to surpass today’s data protection technology.

Internet security experts have seen this problem grow lately as well. In an interview with Computerworld, Anup Ghosh, founder of security firm Invincea, said it is not uncommon for employees to fall for a phishing scam and put their company’s sensitive information at risk.

"You only need a very low click-through rate to establish several points of presence inside an organization," Ghosh said. "If you have 1,000 employees in your organization and you train them all on not opening untrusted attachments, you'll still have someone doing it. This is not a problem you can train yourself out of."

Research on the subject supports these beliefs. Since last year, spam levels have plummeted, according to a McAfee report on the fourth quarter of 2010, while malware levels have risen. This suggests that cyber criminals are scaling down the number of malicious programs and phishing emails they release in favor of producing a smaller number of more potent threats.

Related posts:

  1. Phishing: A Main Concern for Enterprise Security
  2. New and Improved Hosted Email Security Combats Spear-Phishing and Ransomware
  3. How We Boost the Security of Office 365 by Blocking 3.4 Million High-Risk Email Threats
  4. Comcast Phishing Email is Going Around

Security Intelligence Blog

  • Our New Blog
  • How Unsecure gRPC Implementations Can Compromise APIs, Applications
  • XCSSET Mac Malware: Infects Xcode Projects, Performs UXSS Attack on Safari, Other Browsers, Leverages Zero-day Exploits

Featured Authors

Ed Cabrera (Chief Cybersecurity Officer)
Ed Cabrera (Chief Cybersecurity Officer)
  • Ransomware is Still a Blight on Business
Greg Young (Vice President for Cybersecurity)
Greg Young (Vice President for Cybersecurity)
  • Not Just Good Security Products, But a Good Partner
Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
  • This Week in Security News: Ransomware Gang is Raking in Tens of Millions of Dollars and Microsoft Patch Tuesday Update Fixes 17 Critical Bugs
Mark Nunnikhoven (Vice President, Cloud Research)
Mark Nunnikhoven (Vice President, Cloud Research)
  • Twitter Hacked in Bitcoin Scam
Rik Ferguson (VP, Security Research)
Rik Ferguson (VP, Security Research)
  • The Sky Has Already Fallen (you just haven’t seen the alert yet)
William
William "Bill" Malik (CISA VP Infrastructure Strategies)
  • Black Hat Trip Report – Trend Micro

Follow Us

Trend Micro In The News

  • Advanced Cloud-Native Container Security Added to Trend Micro's Cloud One Services Platform
  • Trend Micro Goes Global to Find Entrepreneurs Set to Unlock the Smart Connected World
  • Winners of Trend Micro Global Capture the Flag Demonstrate Excellence in Cybersecurity
  • Companies Leveraging AWS Well-Architected Reviews Now Benefit from Security Innovations from Trend Micro
  • Trend Micro Announces World's First Cloud-Native File Storage Security
  • Home and Home Office
  • |
  • For Business
  • |
  • Security Intelligence
  • |
  • About Trend Micro
  • Asia Pacific Region (APAC): Australia / New Zealand, 中国, 日本, 대한민국, 台灣
  • Latin America Region (LAR): Brasil, México
  • North America Region (NABU): United States, Canada
  • Europe, Middle East, & Africa Region (EMEA): France, Deutschland / Österreich / Schweiz, Italia, Россия, España, United Kingdom / Ireland
  • Privacy Statement
  • Legal Policies
  • Copyright © 2017 Trend Micro Incorporated. All rights reserved.