MailGuard Blog

A July 13 Washington Post  article reported the indictment of 12 Russians accused of hacking the US Democratic Party in 2016.

The indictment documentation includes detailed information about the process the accused Russian hackers allegedly used to gain access to Democratic Party email accounts and networks.

“As a small business, we find it challenging to identify threats and have measures in place to mitigate them with very limited time/resource.”

“I find the board’s posture is too relaxed, suggesting lack of acute awareness of the real risks.”

“Lack of concern and awareness around the risk and consequence. Directors and management are more concerned about accessibility than protection (until an event occurs, that is...)”

GDPR - the EU General Data Protection Regulation - is now in effect. The regulations are designed to protect the data privacy of EU residents, but because the rules affect any company handling EU data, the true influence of the GDPR is international in scope.

Dear admired friend,

It is my solemn duty to inform you of the passing of your distant relative Mr Mohammed Abacha, a respected member of the Nigerian aristocracy.

Two Nigerian scammers operating out of London UK are now serving jail time over a £1 million+ phishing operation. 

According to UK investigators the jailed men, Emmanuel Mmaduike and Olawale Kashimawo (pictured above), headed a well-organised cybercrime syndicate specialising in email fraud. 

BYOD - Bring Your Own Device- is standard practice now in most industries. Every person working in an office has a web-enabled phone in their pocket that can receive email and that’s increasingly the in-point for phishing scams. 

The latest report released by the FBI’s internet crime division - IC3 - reveals that email-based social engineering attacks were the most commonly reported cybercrime category in 2017.

IC3 received 300,000 complaints in 2017, representing estimated losses of more than US$1.4 billion.

Malware is one of the most common cybercrime attack methods because it’s so profitable for cybercriminals and it can be delivered via email or compromised websites.

Ransomware and spyware have long been the most common malware types but recently, with the surges in cryptocurrency value, a new malware pandemic is appearing: cryptojacking.

"The imperative to do AI research is now not optional. We have to build better and better AI security systems because you can bet your life the criminal elements of the hacking world are busy developing AI weapons to attack us..." - Bill Rue.

Artificial Intelligence is one of those subjects that is constantly in the headlines at the moment; controversial, endlessly debated and widely misunderstood.

Making and selling malware like viruses, trojans and ransomware has grown into a booming industry that now generates new cyber-threats on a daily basis.

The latest malware strain to hit the blogosphere headlines has been dubbed ‘SquirtDanger.’ It’s potent spyware that can covertly record passwords, take screenshots and even steal files from infected devices.

“Cybersecurity risks are growing, both in their prevalence and in their disruptive potential. Attacks against businesses have almost doubled in five years, and incidents that would once have been considered extraordinary are becoming more and more commonplace.”

On average, 2 Australian companies are being hit by data breach incidents every day, says the first report produced by the newly enacted Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) Scheme.

Of those incidents, nearly half were the result of criminal attacks and the majority were directed at professional services companies in the health, finance and legal sectors.

Will future artificial intelligence be a cybersecurity risk?

That’s the provocative question posed by a new report from Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).  

Several think tanks including OpenAI, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation collaborated with CSER to publish the report warning that AI is set to redefine cybersecurity threats.

Cyber-attacks are a growing challenge for Australian companies and are now Australia’s number-one economic crime. MailGuard collaborates with PwC and Microsoft to bring together CEOs and cybersecurity experts in forums focussed on the rise of cybercrime and the challenge it presents for business.

If you’re an international criminal selling guns, trafficking dope or running email scams, one of the big problems you’re going to encounter on a regular basis is how to move your money around. A few years ago Bitcoin was the cybercriminal’s favourite means of shifting funds but governments have started to monitor and regulate cryptocurrency now, so it’s not as easy as it used to be. But crooks can always be counted on to find creative ways of moving their money around and the latest racket they’ve come up with involves online computer games.