Print.IT - issue 50

18 PRINT.IT 01732 759725 How safe are your emails? Email fraud is on the rise Someone is stealing your money. Well trained, highly motivated cyber-criminals are targeting businesses like yours and helping themselves to millions of pounds via spoofed email messages. These highly focused messages target finance staff encouraging them to expedite payments to suppliers that the Managing Director or Chief Executive cannot due to being away from the office. This new phenomenon has been dubbed “Whaling” as the target is one large target as opposed to “Phishing” which looks to de-fraud a larger number of smaller targets. The consequences of inaction Many medium and large size companies have been targeted by these attackers, losing over £520m between them since 2013. Snapchat is the latest high-profile victim, revealing em- ployee payroll information to an unknown attacker. As with any scam of this type, the goal of whaling is to trick someone in to disclosing personal or corporate information through various methods, most typically email correspondence. ‘Whaling’ has already cost businesses over £500m Attackers can imitate your staff and redirect payments How is it done? The attacker is able to intercept emails between companies and freely read their content. Over many weeks or even months the attacker learns how to impersonate the style and language of those sending and receiving the emails. The attacker is then able to send a bogus request for money including new bank account details for the transfer. As the attacker has lots of information about the target the request will appear to be genuine and money is very often transferred to the attackers account. An attacker is able to successfully infiltrate a target as standard email has no way to verify the email address of a sender or recipient. This means that the displayed “to” or “from” name actually has no relation to the email address behind it. How can I protect my business? The Frama RMail platform provides a secure environment for sending and receiving encrypted business critical communication, providing a strong defence against whaling attacks. Easy to install and even easier to use, the RMail platform is added to your current email client and provides the option to send any email message with 256-bit encryption. In addition, all email sent in this way provide legal verifiable proof of content and delivery and full audit trail of who said what to whom and when. As whaling becomes a part of everyday business life, can your business afford not to take action to protect your business from this new threat? FRAMA (UK) LIMITED 15 Limes Court, High Street, Hoddesdon, Herts EN11 8EP Tel: 01992 451125 Fax: 01992 466453 For more information visit www.frama.co.uk or email direct to [email protected]