MailGuard Blog

Defending against Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks has long been a key component of many businesses’ cybersecurity strategies.

As many of you know by now, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced in a press conference last month that Australian private & public sector companies are being targeted in a massive cyber-attack by a "sophisticated state-based cyber actor". 

The End of Financial Year (EOFY) is approaching – a period that notoriously witnesses a spike in finance and tax-related scams affecting business worldwide. Just this past month, we’ve intercepted several such email scams, including those brandjacking banks like ANZ & other financial institutions, and those containing statements of accounts. 

This week marks Privacy Awareness Week 2020, an initiative by The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). It aims to highlight the importance of protecting personal information and to help organisations and employees across Australia navigate the privacy landscape.

About a month ago, we reported a rise in COVID-19 themed email scams that were infiltrating inboxes worldwide. These included emails impersonating the World Health Organization, through to those selling face masks at unbelievable prices.

In recent days, new reports have emerged about hackers attempting to sell zero-day exploits targeting Mac OS X and Windows users, with price tags for the vulnerabilities as high as $500,000. 

In every company, the HR function plays a critical strategic role in coping with disruption – but what happens when disruption suddenly becomes the norm?  

It’s happened to the best of us. Trying to log onto a conference call and forgetting the meeting ID and password. Talking with the mute button on or even experiencing ‘frozen faces’ during a video call. Be it due to technological fails or human error, the world of virtual conferencing is full of embarrassing (and sometimes hilarious) mishaps.

Q&A with Craig McDonald, CEO & Founder, MailGuard

We've blocked a malicious email scam brandjacking One Drive.  

Be wary of opening emails claiming to be from Dropbox. MailGuard intercepted a scam targeting inboxes this week and masquerading as Dropbox. To avoid being detected by email content scanners, in this attack cybercriminals have obfuscated the brand by writing ‘Dropbox’ with non-latin characters.

How do you take your email, filtered or non-filtered?

Of all the email directed to a typical business around 75% will probably be junk mail, or spam. In our experience we see anywhere between 50% and 90% across our client base. This spam may be harmless but annoying offers of products, or it could lead to serious damage to a firm's computers or data.

On Thursday March 15th, a cloud security specialist at MailGuard identified a fast breaking virus that was not being detected by most end-point anti-virus software. The suspect email contained a message from an Eastern European resident looking for love and friendship. The intention was to lure recipients into browsing what they thought would be pictures of the lonely heart, when in actual fact they were executing malware.

Email is the #1 communication tool for the majority of businesses today. Without email access, communications grind to a halt. Businesses lose money fast. Productivity suffers. Brand reputation can be adversely affected. Crucial communications with stakeholders, customers, and vendors are disrupted, and emails may bounce.

By Ian Moyse; Eurocloud UK Board Member and Cloud Industry Forum Governance Board Member.