In the modern technological age, cyberattacks represent an ongoing exposure to all businesses—large and small. One of the most common and dangerous cyberattacks is phishing. This blog post is about a true story of a phishing campaign that hacked into a small business—a story that illustrates why cyber awareness and defensive measures should play a role in your daily work life.
The Assault On Setoff Begins: A Schematic Email
It all started when an employee at a small marketing company received what looked like a familiar email from a client. It was a finely crafted email with the client’s logo and signature, which asked the employee to read and approve an invoice attached in a Word document.
The contents of the email seemed reasonable. Initially, everything looked normal, except for sense of urgency regarding action needed on an unpaid invoice. The employee trusted their gut feeling, and instead of opening the document, the email was forwarded directly to IT to verify.
That proactive decision was the first step in saving the company.
Digging Deeper: Understanding the Phishing Campaign
As the IT team dug a little deeper, they noticed that while the sender's email address was a "known entity," it had a small difference from the actual client’s address—something they would have likely missed. The "invoice" attachment was not an "invoice" at all. When scanned, the document was discovered to have code that would allow malware to be installed (ransomware) to the company network.
The marketing firm was not the only victim. As our team at Cyber Tech Associates continued their investigation, it became clear that the phishing campaign was part of a larger attack that had targeted a number of businesses in the area. Several businesses were victims and had their systems compromised and their business-critical data locked down at the hands of ransomware.
Our Response: Swift Action To Limit Damage
Once we understood the extent of the threat, we took immediate action. Our first step was to isolate the hacked account to prevent any malware from spreading into the network. Second, we sent a company-wide message regarding the phishing attempt, in which we provided a detailed account of the attack and how to avoid the phishing later.
Next, we put a plan in place to help mitigate future damage; we conducted a threat assessment. Using state-of-the-art tools, we scanned the company's the entire network for possible malware and compromised systems. The immediately employee intervention had stopped the ransomware from operating.
Education: The Most Vital Defense Mechanism
The next build block was to ensure that every employee was familiarized with the possibility of phishing attacks and would know how to recognize and respond appropriately. We conducted a number of phishing simulation exercises that involved employees receiving dummy phishing emails. This was done in order to assess their skill level and scrutiny of emails received. Over the course of time, we saw a reduction in the number of times people clicked on the phishing link of roughly 90% which considerably limited the chances of a future exposure.
These training sessions covered a number of points, including:
How to identify a phishing email : Employees learned to carefully and thoroughly analyze the email address and look for slight differences and to refrain from opening links to attachments from unknown or suspicious emails.
Reporting suspicious emails to the IT team: We implemented a clear mechanism for employees to report suspicious emails and share them with the IT team.
Password Security: Employees also learned the importance of changing passwords and to use multi factor authorization (MFA) on as many accounts as was feasible.
The Aftermath: Recovery and Defense Improvements
Through the presence of an employee who was able to think quickly and through the preparedness of the IT team, the marketing firm was able to dodge a devastating ransomware attack as a result of a phishing campaign, and while some firms that were targeted in this campaign were not as lucky, the firm was intact.
To further bolster defenses, the firm established several initiatives:
Advanced email filtering. By having advanced filtering systems in place, the firm could prevent phishing emails from entering inboxes in the first place.
Backup and recovery. The firm was already equipped with a back-up system designed such that it could install any significant files after an issue occurred without paying the ransom.
Regular security auditing. The firm scheduled quarterly security audits to determine whether there were vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the firm's IT security protocols.
Conclusion: Always be vigilant.
This actual phishing attempt demonstrates the importance of cybersecurity awareness and employee training, while employees should not solely rely on the effectiveness of technologies to mitigate cyberattacks against their organizations. While technology is necessary in ransomware attack prevention, the only reliable form of becoming aware of an intrusion is through human vigilance.
Ultimately in this disaster, the ability of the firm to avert disaster came down to a single employee trusting their gut instincts to report a suspicious email. All organizations must ensure its employees are educated and equipped to investigate for cyberintrusions and cyber threats in the world we live in today.
As a reminder, the best time to prepare for a cyberattack on your firm is before it occurs.
Commentaires