Phishing hacker attacks increased in the third quarter of 2018, particularly targeted ones. Among the most exploited companies is Microsoft
The phishing alarm is sounding again. According to a research by Vade Secure, a company active in the cybersecurity sector, a group of hackers would be sending, in a massive way, email messages impersonating companies and service providers such as Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal and so on.
According to reports Vade Secure, throughout 2018 there are at least 86 major brands that cyber criminals have exploited to send emails containing one or more cyber attacks to various users of the Network. In the third quarter of 2018, phishing-type attacks increased by 20%, and the company most targeted by hackers who used it to deceive their users was Microsoft. Redmond is also one of the most exploited companies by cyber criminals because often by pretending to be Microsoft they manage to get company data and files from programs such as Office 365, OneDrive and so on.
How to defend yourself from this type of targeted phishing attacks
Defending yourself from these new phishing attacks is not super easy, also because hackers are getting better and better at disguising themselves as a famous company or site. Also, cyber criminals tend to stop using the same URLs to spread their scams. This means that the sites they redirect us to in order to trick us are not always the same, and that antivirus software cannot recognize all the links we find in various phishing emails as malicious.
But then how do we protect ourselves from this type of cyber threats? First of all, let’s avoid clicking lightly on the links and attachments we receive via e-mail. Before clicking on these hyperlinks we perform a thorough scan with the antivirus installed on our computer. Secondly, let’s remember that most services such as updating current account data should absolutely not be done via email. Finally, we always check URLs to see if they can be trusted or not. Also pay attention to the spelling of the sites we are redirected to, too many mistakes could mean a website made with a translator by cyber criminals.