Marked escalation in spear phishing seen in early 2021

As malware becomes ever more inventive, none more so than Emotet and Trickbot phishing which exploit human vulnerabilities. Using social engineering to hook the unsuspecting target, these phishing emails are easy to miss unless constantly on guard.

The number of attacks on shipping has been increasing week on week and there is no doubt that the industry is becoming an ever more attractive target for hackers as more ships move online with the availability of internet connectivity. And with global supply chains for essential goods involved, the hackers believe they will be able to extort significant sums of money.

Dualog warned customers back in December 2020

In December Dualog® issued a warning to the industry to be extra vigilant throughout the holiday season after seeing an increase in cyber-attacks by email, often hidden in holiday greetings emails. Read more about this in our press release here. This warning was well placed as we have seen a marked escalation in spear phishing during the holiday season and this shows no sign of abating.

Webinar: How to mitigate the rise in advanced email hacker attacks in 2021?

To address this issue head-on, Geir Inge Jensen, Chief Information Security Officer at Dualog, has recorded a webinar to demonstrate how Emotet attempts to infiltrate computer systems. Click here to view the webinar. He has examples of real-world screen shots which so closely resemble authentic messages that it can be difficult to identify them as malware unless paying very close attention. The webinar also explains the kind of damage that these attacks can inflict on computers and any other smart devices they are linked to. Finally, he talks about the best methods of mitigating cyber-attacks.

IMO 2021 cyber security regulations

In fact, it is estimated that ransomware attacks against businesses will occur every 11 seconds throughout 2021 and that up to 1.5 million phishing sites are created each month. These are the disturbing statistics that have necessitated the IMO 2021 regulations around cyber security. Read our blog post about IMO 2021 here.

Make sure that you have taken every possible step to keep your operations cyber-secure.

Source: Dualog