Office 365 now has over 100 million monthly active subscribers but is still a relatively new tool and due to its accessibility has become a breeding ground for highly personalised, compelling attacks.
When employees receive an email from a co-worker, sent from their correct address, they often have no reason to believe it’s not legitimate. But this is not always the case. Barracuda found an increase in the number of attacks that are much more difficult to spot due to their personalised nature- they contain no bold requests, misspelled words or questionable attachments to raise a red flag. On the user has clicked the link within the message, it sends them to a well-crafted landing page where they are prompted to enter their credentials. There is normally one of two outcomes:
- Attackers will setup forwarding rules on the account to observe the user’s communications patterns and use that knowledge as leverage for future attacks
- Or attackers will attempt to send messages from the compromised account to other employees in an attempt to get hold of other sensitive information. (Insider Impersonation)
Barracuda’s advice- take action:
User Training and Awareness — Employees should be regularly trained and tested to increase their security awareness of various targeted attacks. Simulated attack training is by far the most effective form of training.
Multi-Factor Authentication — a form of multi-factor authentication is included with Office 365, but you can also purchase Azure multi-factor authentication that includes extended functionality.
Real-Time Spear Phishing and Cyber Fraud Defense — Barracuda Sentinel is a cloud service that utilizes AI to learn an organization’s communications history and prevent future spear phishing attacks. It combines three powerful layers: an artificial intelligence engine that stops spear phishing attacks in real time and identifies the most high-risk individuals inside the company; domain fraud visibility using DMARC authentication to guard against domain spoofing and brand hijacking; and fraud simulation training for high-risk individuals.
