Security Awareness Training Blog

Phishing Blog

Learn about current phishing techniques, notable campaigns and attacks, what to watch out for 'in the wild', and more.

Yes, that email is really from LinkedIn. And, yes, it's really malicious.

By Eric Howes, KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher. Several months ago we blogged about a startling discovery by threat researchers at Proofpoint: the bad guys had figured out a way to turn ...
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How Podesta got hacked: HelpDesk said 'Password' phishing email was real

John Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was a victim of social engineering and rushed advice from his IT helpdesk. It's a comedy of errors. The helpdesk ...
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A Slick Phish with a Hidden Surprise

By Eric Howes, KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher. Yesterday one of our customers was hit with a highly targeted phishing attack -- one of the slicker attacks we've seen in a while. Once we ...
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Brazen: Phishing Attacks The Bad Guys Send When No One's Looking

When we talk with folks outside the security industry about what we see from the bad guys on a daily basis, we often get the response, "Wow! That's really sneaky." And it's true. The bad ...
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These 500 Million Hacked Yahoo Accounts Are A Phishing Paradise. Warn Your Users!

It's all over the press. Here is a quote from Reuters: "Yahoo Inc said on Thursday information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen from its network in 2014 by ...
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Scam Of The Week: Apple Store Phishing Attack Goes For Whole Enchilada

Phishing attacks using false Apple Store email messages, fake landing pages and sometimes fake login pages are still a very popular attack vector. They still make it through all the ...
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Bad Guy FAIL! or, When a Simple Credentials Phish Goes Horribly Wrong

By Eric Howes, KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher. Anyone who works a job in the computer security industry inevitably develops a kind of dark appreciation for the mad skills so often ...
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Reported Phishes of the Week

KnowBe4's Templates Mistress Katie has been busy again adding a new batch of phishing templates to the collection of "System Templates" available to active subscribers.
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Targeted Lawsuit Phishing Attack With Sophisticated Payload

We are seeing a big phishing wave with a social engineering attack that threatens with a personalized lawsuit using the domain name of the targeted victim. This is an interesting payload ...
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"But, But, But... I Didn't Click!" False Positives In Phishing Tests

The following question was posted in the SANS Securing The Human forum. I thought it was a very good point and asked our VP Product Greg Kras for his perspective. First the question:
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Funny Phishing Story: Your Online Order Receipt

A customer sent us this: Hi, I wanted to share with you a funny story…. My boss calls me into her office, very serious like. She sits me down and asks “Did you use the company credit card ...
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Coming Soon to an Inbox Near You: A New Type Of Tech Support Scam

By Eric Howes, KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher. Yesterday we spotted an unusual phishing email that we'd like to share with readers. If nothing else, it tells us that the increased ...
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Phishing Attack With Malicious Word Doc Changes Proxy Settings

Microsoft recently came across a threat that uses social engineering but delivers a different payload than the usual Office document with macros. Its primary purpose is to change a user’s ...
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Criminal Phishing-as-a-Service Platform Steals Credentials

Want someone's credentials? Just social engineer them. Phishing is still responsible for 91% of data breaches and has been for the last few years. A Russian cyber mafia has created a ...
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CrowdStrike: "Russian Hackers Attack DC Think Tanks With Phishing Emails"

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that "A Russian hacking group linked to a series of computer intrusions at the Democratic National Committee and other organizations is now ...
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The Ultimate Pop-up Phishing Warning Message

'Just weeks after she started preparing opposition research files on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort last spring, Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa ...
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Yes, that email is really from Paypal. And, yes, it's really malicious.

Score another one for the bad guys, who have yet again demonstrated their seemingly inexhaustible ability to concoct new methods to exploit legitimate services in order to bypass existing ...
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First Half 2016 Top 10 Phone Scams Revealed

You may not have heard of Atlanta-based Pindrop Labs. They have developed an innovative way to detect fraudulent phone calls called a "phone print", and their solutions reduce fraud ...
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New KnowBe4 Phishing Templates: A Summary 7/30/2016

Over the past few weeks our Phishing Templates Mistress Katie and her team have added 17 new templates for use by customers in their simulated phishing campaigns.
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Scam Of The Week: FBI Warns Against Data Breach Extortion

The number of data breaches keeps going up. Last week it was more than 1,000 Wendy's where credit card records got ripped off. Fraudsters quickly use the news release of a high-profile ...
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