Resources
Latest cyber security news, views and insights
In the absence of a secure culture, reducing cyber risk could be impossible
Reading Time: 3 minutes To understand why it might be impossible to reduce human cyber risk without a secure culture, it’s worth considering a series of experiments from the world of behavioural science.The experiments weren’t designed to uncover security insights. Rather, they were designed to demonstrate quirks in human behaviour. Specifically, they were designed to reveal why people sometimes “cheat”.
You are almost certainly miscalculating your cyber risk
Reading Time: 2 minutes Although it might not seem like it, people’s actions following 9/11 demonstrate just how likely it is you’re miscalculating your cyber risk.Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, people began to change their travel plans.
Some people love to take a risk. So shouldn’t we be tailoring security awareness training?
Reading Time: 2 minutes As you may already be aware, most people prefer to avoid taking risks. In fact, most people prefer to avoid taking risks so much that they fail to do so even when taking the risk makes complete and total sense.
Phishing Training: an intelligent approach
Broadly speaking, most phishing training works in more or less the same way. An automated tool sends simulated phishing and spear phishing simulations to those within your organisation. The simulations fool some, but not others. The tests reveal precisely who has been...
Some simulated attacks help reduce cyber risk. Others are redundant. What’s the difference?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Here’s an interesting conundrum for cyber security professionals.Some simulated attacks reduce human cyber risk.Others, however, have no effect on risk – and may even have a negative impact.
The two most common phishing scams that affect UK businesses
Reading Time: 3 minutes Phishing scams evolve constantly. Don’t they?
On the one hand, yes. Sophisticated cyber criminals are very much aware that, once a phishing scam becomes well known, its potency falls. So, over time, phishing scams adapt and evolve.
On the other hand, the the nuts and bolts of phishing scams are surprisingly static. On the whole, phishing attacks are quick, cheap and disastrously effective. Knowing this, criminals rarely tweak the inner workings of their phishing scams all that much.
How can phishing affect a business?
Reading Time: 3 minutes The consequences of phishing can be severe…
It’s widely reported, for example, that tech giants including Facebook and Google sent as much as $100m directly to criminals following a spear phishing campaign that went on for more than two years.
Why Phishing Training Is Important
Reading Time: 2 minutes In 2017, an email prankster targeted the White House.
The prankster’s goal was simple: to trick White House staff into responding to fraudulent emails for nothing more than a cheap thrill. With little to gain from the endeavour, the prankster’s efforts were basic.
The trickster wrote a simple email purporting to be from Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He sent it off to Tom Bossert (at the time Homeland Security Advisor). And he waited to see if the security advisor would respond.
Can phishing be prevented?
Reading Time: 2 minutes As phishing filters are far from perfect, can phishing ever really be prevented?
Today, with phishing attacks on the rise and the cyber threat landscape constantly evolving, most companies employ some form of technological phishing filter to help prevent phishing.
Such filters typically rely on machine learning to check and categorise incoming emails and, after doing, prevent suspicious emails from making it into corporate inboxes.
How to identify a phishing email
You’ve received an email. As no phishing filter can keep out 100% of all phishing attacks, there’s a chance the email could be malicious – no matter what it looks like. How do you check whether or not the email is a phishing attack? Step 1: Is the email...
5 ways to get more from cyber security awareness campaigns
Incredibly, traditional cyber security awareness training may actually decrease security awareness. Here’s how to ensure your security awareness campaigns increase resilience. Last year, researchers looking into the security of mobile devices inadvertently uncovered...
Why are phishing attacks successful?
Phishing attacks often seem rudimentary. With their spelling and grammar errors, blurry replicas of company logos and conspicuous twists on sender names, they should be easy to spot, shouldn’t they? So why is it, instead of dying down, phishing attacks are on the...
How are phishing attacks used in identity theft?
People are more likely to be a victim of identity theft than any other type of cybercrime… and phishing can be a precursor In order to steal your identity, criminals need to get hold of your personal information. That’s all it really takes to begin opening bank...
Are phishing attacks on the rise?
In 2018, some reports suggest the number of phishing attacks are falling. Is that really the case? Phishing attacks have been on the rise for a long time now. According to the UK government’s most recent cyber security breaches survey, they cause more data breaches...
Why security awareness training sometimes fails – and what you can do about it
To demonstrate why security awareness training so often fails, it’s worth conducting a quick thought experiment. Imagine you’re a smoker and, one day, you find out you’re genetically susceptible to lung cancer. Thanks to your genes, you’re two-three times more likely...