Four Variables of Phishing Before we outline the four things you should be looking for to identify a phishing message, we wanted to say that these attacks can happen over any type of communication. You can just as easily be phished over the phone or through the mail as you can over email or through instant message. Most phishing messages are delivered through email, but they can come from any direction.  Let?s go through four variables of a phishing message: #1 – There is a Real Sense of Urgency While a lot of the messages that we get in business are demanding, there is something extraordinary about a phishing message. Essentially, phishing messages will urge the reader to take immediate action. This action could be in the form of clicking on links, downloading attachments, or giving over credentials that the hacker will then use to infiltrate organizational computing networks and steal data, deploy malware, or other negative situations.   #2 – Poor Grammar and Spelling Many of these messages are created with the notion that the reader will be fooled by the overall legitimacy of the message. Many times they are sent as being from financial institutions or insurance companies. Typically, however, there are signs within the message itself that can signal its illegitimacy. Variables like misspelled words, poor use of grammar, and other red flags can tip users that the message is not legitimate.  #3 – The Domain Is Not Right When someone sends an official email from a business, typically the domain name of the email address that is sending the email will represent the organization that the message is coming from. If the address doesn?t come from the organization that is sending the message, that is a giant red flag. Most reputable organizations pay good money to host their own domain and if the address you are getting a message from doesn?t represent that, you have to believe that it is a scam.  #4 – Suspicious Aura of the Message You know the type of messages that you typically get. If a message you receive doesn?t meet the criteria of ?normal? you, at the very least, need to verify with the presumed sender of the message that it is legitimate. If it feels off, it probably is. Make sure you get this confirmation through a different means of communication. Phishing messages are the most common way that hackers gain access to systems and deliver malware. As a result, you need to make sure that your staff is thoroughly trained on what variables to look for so they don?t put your whole organization in danger. For more information about phishing or to get some help implementing a training strategy at your place of business, give the IT professionals at White Mountain IT Services a call today at (603) 889-0800.

First of All: What is Network Segmentation? Network segmentation, or the act of segmenting your network into different parts, is a practice intended to help protect different resources. Think about a bank, for instance, and the safety deposit boxes held within it. It isn?t as though the bank is only secured at the front door, is it? No?the front door is locked, sure, but there are also security cameras watching the inside, with assorted additional locked doors providing obstacles, with the vault door heavily secured and all the safety deposit boxes inside also locked up tight, requiring multiple keys to open them. Network segmentation effectively does the same in regards to your business? infrastructure. Firewalls, authentication requirements, and assorted other access controls are all used to accomplish this segmentation?which both helps protect data from external threats as well as internal overreach or malice. If you?ve ever heard of a zero-trust architecture, network segmentation is a big part of that. How Can Network Segmentation Protect My Business? It?s simple?by restricting different areas of your network to certain people based on their roles or work responsibilities, you reduce the risk that different data or resources will be accessed by those who shouldn?t. Not only does this help harden your business against cybercrime, it also helps to keep your employees from accessing data they have no reason to access. For instance, let?s presume that one of your employees works making sprockets, another works to sell the sprockets, another works to distribute the sprockets, and you have HR working to keep the entire sprocket-making system running by handling employee needs. Naturally, each of these departments has its own data, as well as data that needs to be shared amongst the different departments. If your sprocket-making business didn?t segment its network, your sprocket-producing employee would not only have access to the documents they need to create the sprockets, they would also be able to access every other department?s documents?including the personal and financial information that HR has on the rest of the team. Yikes. However, if your sprocket-producing business? network was properly segmented, this wouldn?t be an issue. Your employee in charge of production, for instance, would only have access to the documents and data that their production-based responsibilities required. The same would go for your sprocket salesperson, your sprocket distributor, and yes, your HR person. Not only does this help keep your team focused on their individual tasks, it also helps prevent a larger cybersecurity incident by ensuring that one person or department?s vulnerability doesn?t enable access to the entire network. We?re Here to Help You Segment Your Network, and More! Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to learn more about what we can do to help your business in both its operations and its security!

According to Those Who Paid Up, the Ransom Wasn?t the Worst Part According to a survey that Software-as-a-Service review site GetApp conducted of 300 business leaders whose businesses had been victims of ransomware, only 11% of respondents considered the ransom payment itself to be the most consequential impact. Multifaceted extortion is becoming a favorite tactic of many attackers, with 60% of those surveyed having experienced it in tandem with the ransomware attack. In addition to locking down the target?s files, an attacker will often steal them and later threaten to leak them on the Internet unless another payment is received. Alternatively, a business may be targeted by a distributed denial of service (or DDoS) attack?where an attacker floods their target?s servers with traffic, overloading them and crashing their website and exposing them to potential data breach. This kind of multifaceted extortion has also proved very effective indeed. Whereas the survey found that only about 31% of those targeted by ?vanilla? ransomware would pay up, that rate nearly doubled when multifaceted extortion came into play. In those cases, 58% of targeted businesses shelled out the ransom. According to GetApp, 64% of the businesses they surveyed who had experienced multifaceted extortion were struck by ransomware and DDoS traffic, 51% were hit with ransomware and data theft, and 23% had to deal with all three. We Still Haven?t Gotten to the Worst Part Believe it or not, those businesses that GetApp surveyed didn?t see the actual ransom payment as the worst of their experienced impacts. In fact, only 42% did, with 21% seeing minimal repercussions from it. The same went for the reputational impact that these businesses saw?slightly more saw major impacts at 43%, but more also saw no or minimal impact at 26%. Far and away, GetApp?s research indicated that the biggest impact, felt by the most businesses as a result of their ransomware infection, was the lost productivity they suffered. A full 70% of surveyed businesses ranked the effect ransomware had on their productivity as a major impact, with just 13% saying the impact was minimal. And no wonder? ransomware can potentially render your entire business inert for the time it takes to resolve the threat and restore from a backup. The vast majority of those surveyed (69%) also found themselves cut off from their business systems for at least seven hours, 8% dealing with the attack for at least a week. We also need to discuss the fact that ransomware can also lead to a loss of clients. 62% of surveyed business owners confirmed that ransomware had lost them a client, with 38% stating that multiple clients had left them. Whether or Not the Ransom is Paid, Ransomware is Expensive All of these factors combined, it is little wonder that ransomware is an extremely costly attack to deal with. Out of those surveyed, 49% of those that paid had costs over $50,000, all said. However, the same could be said for 34% of those that didn?t pay. Ransomware is Better Avoided So, since it is clear that ransomware is something that it’s best not to have to deal with at all if you can help it, let?s dive into how you can help keep it from darkening your doors. Prevent Phishing Attacks Phishing is no joke on its own, and […]