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The Latest Attack Vector: Middle Managers and Corporate E-Mail

May 7, 2015

Another report analyzing the security landscape named “The Human Factor 2015” was released by security and compliance firm Proofpoint according to a posting at CIO Insight. The report identifies the latest targets for hackers as being middle managers and corporate e-mail systems. There are some very interesting items that are identified in the report.

• On average, users click on one of every 25 malicious messages delivered.
• In 2014, hacker phishing e-mail campaigns evolved and no longer matched the characteristics users were trained to avoid.
• Hackers target corporate users and piggyback on legitimate messages such as newsletters and opt-in marketing messages.
• In 2014, managers doubled their click rate versus 2013 and were twice as likely to click on links in malicious messages than executives.
• Employees in Sales, Finance and Procurement click the most on malicious links – 50% to 80% more often than the average departmental click rate.
• Social media invites declined by 94%.
• Attachments, rather than URLs, such as message notifications and corporate financial alters, increased 1,000% on some days.

Yet again, we need to be training our employees to be ever vigilant as the bad guys keep changing tactics. Today it’s the middle managers, but who knows what the target will be in the next six months?

E-mail:   Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
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