Security Awareness Training Blog

Keeping You Informed. Keeping You Aware.
Stay on top of the latest in security including social engineering, ransomware and phishing attacks.

Be Wary of Unrequested Disc Images

Microsoft’s recent announcement that the new version of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows 11, will be released soon is capturing headlines around the world. Microsoft will allow ...
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When the URL Domain Is Not Enough To Avoid a Phish

One of the most common mantras in security awareness training is “Examine the URL to determine if it points to the legitimate vendor or not!”
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How to Defeat REvil Ransomware

The REvil ransomware gang is in the news again! This time for a supply chain attack and the largest public extortion demand ever – $70 million dollars.
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Turning Compliance Into Tangible Security

Compliance and security are supposedly about risk management. Both seek to reduce the chances that threats and their risks will be able to successfully exploit a target. But they are ...
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Understanding Ransomware’s True Costs

We all know ransomware is pretty bad, but if you are a cybersecurity risk manager trying to justify the latest purchase to mitigate it, nailing down real numbers can be pretty hard. There ...
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The Future Of Ransomware

Ransomware is pretty bad right now. It is taking down nearly any company and industry it can, targeting healthcare, energy infrastructure, and food supplies with equal aplomb. It takes ...
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Everyone Has It Wrong. It Is Not Double Extortion, It Is Quintuple Extortion!

I keep seeing a new ransomware term, “double extortion” being discussed. It is the hot, new buzzword surrounding ransomware. This term attempts to summarize how ransomware is no longer ...
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Cybersecurity Insurance Landscape Is Fundamentally Changing Right Now

By Roger Grimes. Ransomware is stealing so much money and interrupting so many businesses that it might be the beginning of their undoing. It is certainly radically changing the ...
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More Targeted Phishing Attacks Are Coming!

I have been in the cybersecurity business for 34 years. I am not an innately brilliant, but one of the things I seem to do well is to spot trends as they happen early in their cycle. It ...
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Paying the Ransom Is Not Just About Decryption

I just read that a well-known pipeline company paid $5M to the ransomware hacker group. And despite that, they are still having to use their backups because the decryption process is too ...
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Your Organization Needs to Take Security Awareness Training More Seriously

Your organization needs to take security awareness training (SAT) more seriously. I mean truly serious, really serious, and not relegated to some quasi-, semi-serious status that the vast ...
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Why Should We Care About Personal Smishing Attacks?

I am not sure what is going on these days, but for several weeks, I have received far more SMS-based phishing (i.e., smishing) attacks than usual.
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There Is No Herd Immunity in the Digital World

When I was first starting off in my career, I wanted to be a doctor. As life often goes, I got waylaid. Wanting to be a doctor turned in an accounting major and CPA certification, quickly ...
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Forensically Investigating Phishing To Better Protect Your Organization

The single best thing you can do to reduce cybersecurity risk in your environment is to prevent and mitigate social engineering – phishing in particular. The first and best thing any IT ...
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Many Ways To Hack MFA

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to hack multifactor authentication (MFA) solutions. I have done so my whole career, deploying dozens, if not hundreds, of MFA projects. Also, ...
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Make No Mistake, This Changes Everything: Nation-State 2.0

Every organization needs to figure out their increased cyber risk from nation-state warfare attacks and deploy mitigations.
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6 Advanced Email Phishing Attacks

No matter how good your policies and technical defenses are, some amount of phishing will get to your end users in a given month. They must be trained to recognize social engineering ...
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly About MFA

I have been in computer security for over 34 years now. Yeah, even I cannot believe how long it has been. I have been a penetration tester over 20 of those years and worked on dozens of ...
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Caught by a CAPTCHA?

Be aware of being involved in malicious CAPTCHA solving.
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It’s Not Only About the URL

You have to look at the totality of an email to determine whether it is a phishing attack or not.
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