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Category: Phishing

How is Malware Delivered?

Malware

Read a recent study on the origins of malicious software aka malware. Here are the highlights:

Current Malware Statistics

29% – Malware is previously unknown to security vendors due to the continued efforts of malware creators to hide the software or make it undetectable.

88% – Malware is delivered to people’s inboxes and some of it bypassing normal SPAM filters.

8.8 Days – Time before regular antivirus vendors have discovered the malware and added it to their lists for detection.

$50 – The cost of a pre-fabricated malware kit that can be bought currently on the dark web.

“The most common type of malicious attachments were: documents (Word – 31%), archive files (ZIP & RAR – 28%), spreadsheets (Excel – 19%) and executable files (EXE – 17%).”

What can be done?

A multi-tiered approach to security remains the best solution:

  • Moving from traditional antivirus to Enhanced Detection & Response (EDR) software to go beyond lists of know infections to behavior tracking of software
  • Moving from traditional SPAM filters to Email Advanced Threat Protection which scans each email and opens each attachment to see if there is any malicious activity cause by them
  • Moving from traditional router to a business class firewall with Intrusion Prevention System to monitor traffic for suspicious activity
  • Employee training is also key to keep your staff aware of immerging trends and threats 


If your company is looking to enhance your network security posture, then contact us for assistance.

Number of Credentials Exposed Increased by 429%

Hacked - Grants Pass, OR

A company named Arctic Wolf, a leader in enterprise security operation centers, published a report that states that the number of corporate credentials with plaintext passwords on the dark web has increased by 429% since March.

There are also startling statistics on the increase in email phishing attempts and the use of unsecure public wireless connections. These numbers are like due to the Work From Home employees using their own insecure computers and cyber criminals trying to take advantage of the trend. It appears that security measures that are used in the office need to be extended to the Work From Home network as well. 

If your company is currently or is going to have Work From Home users, then contact us for assistance.

Local Church Hit By Ransomware

Got a call a couple weeks ago from a local church:

“we came in and open the computer and we have ransomware on there. We can’t even get to any of our stuff. It’s telling us to email somebody and so that they can free up the computer.”

How does this happen?

Generally these things happen because people click on things they shouldn’t. Whether in an attachment in email from someone they don’t recognize, a link in social media that sounds too good to pass up, or an advertisement for something they can’t live without. Once the user gives permission for something to open or run on their computer the game is over and the hacker wins.

What to do when it happen?

  • Stop using the computer.
  • Leave the computer alone! Do not carry out any further commands, including commands to Save data.
  • Do not close any of the computer’s windows or programs. Leave the computer alone.
  • Leave everything plugged in and do not turn off the computer or peripheral devices.
  • If possible, physically disconnect the computer from networks to which it is attached.
  • Call us immediately. Write down any unusual behavior of the computer (screen messages, unexpected disk access, unusual responses to commands) and the time when they were first noticed.
  • Write down any changes in hardware, software, or usage that preceded the malfunction.
  • Do not attempt to remove a suspected virus! Let the professionals do the dirty work.

How to prevent this from happening?

Layers of protection is the simple answer. A good antivirus installed to stop the bad programs from running, DNS filtering to keep users off of bad sites / advertisements, a good backup of all data to recover when this does happen, and most important of all EDUCATION – teaching users what safe internet usage looks like and having policies in effect to train them can mitigate 60-70% of infections. 

If your company is would like to discuss the layers of security you have in place, then contact us for assistance.

Is this really SPAM?

Thought that I would share a recently received new SPAM email variant that could easily be overlooked and possibly be a scammer looking to take your money. This one is strange to me and I wanted to share my insites.

Starting from the Top

Look closely at the From portion of the email:

This email is from a legitimate email marketing firm called AWeber. The SPAMMER is actually using a website designed to help bypass SPAM filtering to deliver mail. There is also the fact that the email is form someone that I don’t do business with. Always fight the urge to look at things that are not yours.

Stick to the Subject

Now to take a look at the Subject line of the email:

The email marketing firm this SPAM is sent from is required that you confirm someone who is joining your email campaign. Guess I would have to agree to be scammed by this person.

And now the rest…

The final thing that caught my eye was the title of the email campaign in the email:

The enticing title “Clickbank – 30k project” sounded interesting. By clicking on the button I would confirm my existence as a real person and would likely kick off a communication from someone who is likely an “African Prince” with a money making opportunity. Hope this little tutorial helps you detect other phishing attempts in the future.

If your company is having trouble with SPAM or phishing, then contact us for assistance.

Received Hacker Email

Hacker Email

Here is a recent email that I received from a “hacker” that was threatening to expose some secrets. It was an obvious fake email, but I wanted to take the time to educate on how to know a fake when you receive one:

Hacker Email Exposed

Strange Email Address: This email comes from “auf@cesco.com.br” which is an address unknown to me and the domain itself ends in BR which stands for Brazil which again I don’t do business in Brazil so why would someone from there be emailing me.

Poor English: It starts out with the over-friendly greeting and continues with “I hack your computer” then just doesn’t stop. This was likely something typed into Google Translate then pasted into an email.

They Have Everything: Unless you really have something to hide, then this should not scare you. You need to assume that anything that you post online is public information anyways – there are no secrets on Facebook.

Invalid Help: They offer to help with acquiring Bitcoin to pay them in then offer a site to find local ATMs that have this feature. They have no understanding of the area or what local banking services are available. If they know everything about me then they know where I live and could easily look up the local economic structure.

Internet Extortion: They are using extortion tactics to try and scare me into action. They are trying to “sell” me information security for $120, but if I gave into their demands then my email address would become an even more valuable asset as they would have someone they could regularly extort for funds.

What To Do

  1. Unless you have something to hide, ignore the threats. If you do have something to hide then I suggest you quit so that no one can have anything against you.
  2. Forward these emails to me. Include the “header” information by copying it from the File > Properties menu in Outlook as this will help to track down where they are from.
  3. Farmhouse Networking will alert the proper authorities about the malicious activity to help shut these scammers down.

If your company is receiving tons of SPAM or hacker email, then contact us for assistance.

Branded Email using Custom Domain Name

There are many reasons your business needs to use a branded email address using a customized domain name. Let’s look at what the top ones are:

Branded Email Establishes Legitimacy

Customers want to trust a companies before they choose to give their business to them. This is the number one reason businesses should use branded email – not only does it give your business a deeper level of branding, but it establishes the business' legitimacy. This is because your email is often the customer’s first impression of you, especially if email or print marketing had an email for contact. It makes your business look professional and can set it apart from the competition. Phishing schemes are a very real concern these days and many of these fake emails come from people trying to pose as a legitimate business. The best way for your customer to know if the email is really from you or a potentially dangerous location, is by the email address' domain name. If the customer can look at the sender address and see your business’ domain, they will feel more confident clicking links or replying back with sensitive information.

Branded Email Builds Your Brand

A business can never have too much company branding. From business cards to bumper stickers to coffee mugs, there are branding opportunities everywhere. This should includes your business email too. Every time your employees send an email, it reinforces your business brand to the customer. It not only reminds the customer that you have a website, but gives them a peek into what your company is all about.

Branded Email Separates Company Departments

Having a branded email allows you to create multiple email addresses or email aliases for different departments and company objectives. This is a huge benefit as yourname@mycompanyname.com may not always the best address to email or your business may not want the customer to directly contact your employees. It helps compartmentalize the work and make sure that the right person / department receives the correct emails. You can create emails like support@mycomanyname.com, info@mycompanyname.com, sales@mycompanyname.com and many others that can point to one or more members of the organization. It also helps the customer, by pointing them to the right email address for the issue they need addressed.

Branded Email Isn’t Expensive

With Office 365’s Hoste Exchange service your business can add as many individual email addresses and email aliases to your company's branded domain on an as needed basis, access email from anywhere across all major platforms, get industry leading anti-malware / anti-spam filtering built in, send email attachments up to 150MB in size and get 50GB of storage per mailbox. Prices start at just $4 per user per month. Microsoft manages the email server and Farmhouse Networking handles the setup / administration of the rest, which making it simple for you to have a professional branded customized business email address.

If you don’t have a branded email address, now is the perfect time to get one. Small businesses often think they don’t need one or can’t afford it, but that is simply not true. Help your business by setting up a branded email today by giving us a call or email to let our Office 365 experts get your business started on the path to better branding.

Google Apps SPF / DKIM setup

A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record indicates mail servers that are authorized to send mail for a domain. Email recipient servers perform a check with DNS to see if the mail came from an authorized server. If not, then the email is most likely SPAM. SPF DNS records lets the recipient server perform this verification.

A DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) record adds a digital signature to emails your organization sends. Email recipient servers perform a check with DNS for the to see if the DomainKey matches the sender. If so, then the email is considered unmodified and from a legitimate sender. DKIM DNS record lets the recipient server perform this verification.

Configure Google Apps SPF

If you use Google Apps for email, you’ll need access to your DNS provider to add an SPF record. In most cases, you simply login and create a new TXT record with the value of:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Google provides detailed instructions on how this is done. Be sure to save your changes.

Configure DKIM for Google Apps

You’ll need access to your Google Apps control panel and your DNS records to set DKIM. This is a three step process:

1. Create the DKIM key

a. Login to your Google Apps Control Panel (e.g., http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com)

b. Navigate to the Gmail App Control Panel

c. Scroll down to “Authenticate email” and click on “Set up email authentication (DKIM)”.

d. Your domain name should be displayed. Click on “Generate new record”. Leave the default selector prefix as “google”. Click “Generate”.

e. Leave this browser window open, and then create a new tab or browser window.

2. Create the DKIM DNS record

a. Login to your DNS provider.

b. Create a new TXT record. The name of the TXT record should be:

google._domainkey

This creates a domain that, fully resolved, looks like: google._domainkey.yourdomain.com.

c. The value for the DNS record will be a very long string of characters, something like:

v=DKIM1; k=rsa; t=y; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCG5in7gQIDAQAB

The actual length of the string will be much longer than that above. I find it simplest to copy-and-paste the information from the Control Panel page displaying the information. Save the DNS record.

3. Start Authenticating

a. Wait 24-hours for your changes to propagate, and for Google’s servers to detect the changes.

b. Login to your Google Apps Control Panel (e.g., http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com)

c. Go to the “Advanced tools” tab, then scroll down to “Authenticate email” and click on “Set up email authentication (DKIM)”.

d. Click “Start authentication”.

As always, check Google’s detailed instructions if your setup is more complex.

Verify that SPF & DKIM are configured

Send an email from your Gmail account to check–auth@verifier.port25.com after you’ve completed the Google Apps SPF and DKIM setup. You’ll receive an email response in a few minutes. If everything is properly configured, you’ll receive a “PASS” for both the Google Apps SPF and DKIM settings. This means your email is now securely being delivered and can be verified as such.

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