As May ended, the percentage of SPAM and junk mail jumped to 90.4 percent of e-mail. Are your people aware and prepared to avoid and prevent risks and threats associated with SPAM?
To make matters worse, the spamming techniques are successful because the e-mails are being sent from valid accounts hosted by the social-networking sites and not being spoofed. And because the e-mails are coming from valid accounts, technology devices checking the validity of e-mail headers are ineffective as a countermeasure.
In many cases, the junk mail contains only a subject line and a hyperlink and many times the links led to social-networking site profiles. Social-networking sites have become a hotbed for spreading viruses and other malware.
Another twist to the bad guys are using is image spam, where the e-mail message is an image and is more difficult for spam filters to detect. And another new trend is using Russian language character sets to hide English content.
Are your people and your third-parties prepared to detect these risks and avoid these risks?
Are your people and your third-parties prepared to report these attacks and threats?
Lessons learned clearly show that bad guys are using more sophisticated attacks and getting better at avoiding technology. Lessons learned also show these more sophisticated attacks make it critical for ongoing updates to ensure your people are aware of your organization’s detection, prevention, response and recovery efforts and requirements to prevent expensive and embarrassing incidents.