New E-mail Phishing Tactic Steals your E-mail Signature

When it comes to phishing scams, many business owners consider this to be an isolated threat. With most scams targeting individuals and personal information, it’s easy for businesses to write off the threat of Phishing scams as being an irrelevant aspect of their security and technology training. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Here are a few statistics you might find surprising from threatism.com:

• 80% of all malware attacks involve phishing attempts
• Almost 77% of companies have experienced phishing attacks in the last calendar year (as of July 2015)
• Spear phishing (use of personal information in spear phishing e-mails) has an average 18% click rate.

Along with these statistics, what you may not have realized is that hackers are getting even smarter. Just a few days ago, our very own Chief Financial Officer, Neil Shnider was the victim of a spear phishing attempt that appeared to come from our company President, Jake Spanberger. The e-mail requested wire transfer information and was so targeted that it even took Jake’s e-mail signature and placed it in the body of the e-mail.

Because of our thorough training and close communication, no wire transfer details were given away, but you cannot underestimate the importance of training when it comes to phishing attacks.

Training is proven to decrease phishing click rates over time. When employees that had training on how to avoid phishing attacks, the click-thru rate reduced from 25% on the first attempt to 11% after the initial phishing attack training and 4% 24 months later.

Check out this video that we made about the Phishing Attack that gives details on how to spot this spear phishing attempt.

Read this article for more ways to protect your business from phishing scams.