by Doug Kreitzberg | Jun 29, 2020 | Cybersecurity, ransomware
When you think about different types of cyber attacks, ransomware might not be the first thing to come to your mind. It’s the sort of thing you might expect to see in a movie, but not in real life. The truth is, however, that ransomware is an increasingly common form of cyber attack. Government agencies, for example, are now a prime target for ransomware. However, it’s not just governments that should be worrying. According to one report, ransomware attacks against businesses rose by a whooping 263% in 2019. Business everywhere should therefore ensure they take precautions to prevent a ransomware attack and also have a plan in place if one does happen. To help, here is a list of 5 ransomware tips that all businesses should consider.
Ransomware Tip #1: Back It Up
Perhaps the most crucial way to protect yourself against ransomware is to have a robust and regular backup system in place. Any data that is sensitive or essential to business operations should be backed up on a regular basis. However, you have to be smart about it. Make sure your backups are stored offline or somewhere separate from your other networks. If a hacker gains access to your systems, you want to ensure they won’t be able to reach your backups. You should also regularly test your backups to ensure there is no corruption in the data. That way, if an attack occurs and they encrypt your data, you can be sure you have a backup to avoid paying the ransom.
Ransomware Tip #2: Use Security Awareness Training
Ransomware attackers often gain access to systems by first conducting phishing attacks or other forms of social engineering exploits. The key to the attackers success are employees who are not sufficiently trained in detecting emails that contain malicious links. This is just one of the many reasons more businesses should invest in security awareness training programs. For many forms of cyber attacks, your employees are your first line of defense, so making sure they have the tools needed to spot phishing attacks is a must.
Ransomware Tip #3: Stay Up to Date
Operating systems and software are constantly being updated to patch any known security vulnerabilities, but it can be easy to miss an update or put it off for another day. The problem is that attackers are constantly looking for these vulnerabilities and will prey on anyone who hasn’t updated their systems. Updating software, operating systems, and applications should therefore be a priority. In many cases, you are able to set up your systems to update automatically when a new patch is released.
Ransomware Tip #4: Segment and Limit Access
If an attacker gets into your system, you want to ensure they can’t access everything. It’s therefore important to segment your networks. This essentially just means keeping different elements of your network separate from each other so you can control how information flows from one to the others. This also involves implementing access controls so that users on your network are only able to access what they need for their job. These controls should be regularly evaluated. That way, if an attacker steals one of your user’s credentials, they won’t be able to access your entire network.
Ransomware Tip #5: Plan Your Response
Lastly, when it comes to ransomware, it’s important to not just try and prevent an attack, but also have have a plan in place in case one actually happens. Ransomware response should be included in every organization’s overall incident response plan, and you should have a team dedicated to carrying out the plan if an attack happens. Every organization’s response to a ransomware attack will be different, so response teams should sit down with members of the organization at various levels to ensure everyone is on the same page.
by Doug Kreitzberg | Jun 26, 2020 | Coronavirus, Human Factor, Phishing
Maybe the biggest misconception about forming new habits is that the biggest factor for success is the motivation to change. We often imagine that as long as we want to make a change in our lives, we have the power to do it. In fact, motivation is actually the least reliable element making behavior changes. The hard truth is that simply wanting to make a change is far from enough.
The reason? Motivation isn’t a static thing, it comes and goes in waves. It’s therefore tough to keep our motivation high enough to lead to lasting behavior change. Take the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. When it appeared in the U.S, we were highly motivated to socially distance. As time went on, however, more and more people started to take risks and go out more. The reason isn’t because the dangers were any less present, but because our motivation to stay inside started to wane. The point is, if the sole component to any behavior change is motivation, once that motivation starts to diminish, so will the new habit.
Of course, we have to at some level want to make a change, but we also have to realize that it’s simply not enough. Instead, we need to rely more on starting with changes that requires the least amount of motivate necessary for it to occur. This is the idea behind BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits that we wrote about last week. If you want to start reading more, it might be tempting to try reading a chapter or two every day. But more often than not, you’re not going to be motivated to keep that up for long. Instead, if your goal is just to read one paragraph of a day a couple times a day, you’re far more likely to keep up the new habit. Then, over time, you’ll find you need less motivation to read more and more, until you don’t even think about it any more.
This can be a hard pill to swallow. We like to believe that we can do anything we set our minds to, and it’s a little disheartening to think we don’t have as much control over our motivation as we might prefer. When looked at from a different angle, however, understanding this fact allows us to focus on what we can control: setting achievable goals and rewarding ourselves when we met them. Focusing on that rather than our inability to keep our motivation high will lead to more successful behavior change.
by Doug Kreitzberg | Jun 24, 2020 | Cyber Awareness, Phishing
Given that phishing attacks are now the #1 cause of successful data breaches, it’s no surprise that many individuals and organizations are looking for tools to help them get better at spotting phish. The problem, however, is that most of the available education tools reply on “passive” training material: infographics, videos, and sample phish. While this educational tools might teach you a few facts and figures, they don’t always lead to a long term change in how users respond to phish. Instead, educators should be looking for new tools and methods that change the very way we look at our emails. You know the phrase “Give someone a fish, feed him for a day. Teach someone to fish, feed him for a lifetime”? Well, the same is true for phish too.
The idea is simple: Instead of just looking at examples of phish, by engaging in the process of creating a phish you will internalize the tactics and tricks scammers in real life and will be better able to spot them.
There is actually a method that has been proven to work in similar settings, such as recognizing propaganda and misinformation. It’s called inoculation theory. The idea is similar to how vaccines work: by exposing people to small doses of something more dangerous, and by actively engaging them in the process, they can better defend themselves against the real thing in the future. Cambridge University used this theory to create an online game that asks users to create their own fake news.
In a similar way, teaching someone how to make phish creates an engaging way for users to understand how actual phishers think and what tactics they use to trick people. We believe this form of training has the potential to be far more successful in help users create long lasting change and help them stay safer online.
by Doug Kreitzberg | Jun 22, 2020 | Cybersecurity, Disinformation, Phishing
In 1989 the U.S. Postal Service issued new stamps that featured four different kinds of dinosaurs. While the stamps look innocent enough, their release was the source of controversy among paleontologists, and even serves as an example of how misinformation works by making something false appear to be true.
The controversy revolves around the inclusion of the brontosaurus, which, according to scientists at that time, never existed. In 1874, paleontologist O.C. Marsh discovered the bones of what he thought was a new species of dinosaur. He called it the brontosaurus. However, as more scientists discovered similar fossils, they realized that what Marsh had found was in fact a species previous identified as an apatosaurus, which, ironically, is Greek for “deceptive lizard.” Paleontologists were therefore rightly upset to see the brontosaurus included on a stamp with real dinosaurs.
Over 30 year later, however, these stamps may have something to teach us about how disinformation works today. They show how disinformation is not simply about falsehoods — it’s about how those falsehoods are presented so as to seem true.
The stamps help illustrate this in three ways:
1) Authority
One of the ways something can appear to be true is when the information comes from a figure of authority. Because the stamps were officially released by the U.S. government, it gives the information contained on them the appearance of truth. Of course, no one would think the USPS is an authority on dinosaurs, and yet the very position of authority the postal service occupies seems to serve as a guarantee of the truth of what is presented. The appearance of authority, however wrongly placed it is, is often enough for us to believe something to be true.
This is a tactic used by scammers all the time. It’s the reason why you’ve probably gotten a lot of robocalls claiming to be the IRS. Phishing emails also use this tactic by spoofing the ‘from’ field and using logos of businesses and government agencies. We too often assume that, just because information appears to be coming from an authority, it must be true.
2) Truths and a Lie
Another way something false can appears true is by placing what is fake among things that are actually true. The fact that the other stamps in the collection — the tyrannosaurus, the stegosaurus, and the pteranodon — are real gives the brontosaurus the appearance of truth. By placing one piece of false information alongside recognizably true information, that piece of false information starts to look more and more like a truth.
Fake news on social media uses this tactic all the time. Phishing attacks also take advantage of this by replicating certain aspects of legitimate emails. This might include mentioning information in the news, such as COVID-19, or even including things like an unsubscribe link at the end of the email. This tactic works by using legitimate information and elements in an email to cover up what is fake.
3) Anchoring
The US Postal Service did not invent the brontosaurus: in fact, the American Museum of Natural History named a skeleton brontosaurus in 1905. Once a claim is stated as truth, it becomes very hard to dislodge. This was actually the reasoning the US Postal Service used when they were challenged: “Although now recognized by the scientific community as Apatosaurus, the name Brontosaurus was used for the stamp because it is more familiar to the general population.” Anchoring is a key aspect of disinformation, especially with regards to persistency.
Beyond Appearances
Overall, what the brontosaurus stamp shows us is that our ability to discern the true from the false largely depends on how information is presented to us. Scammers and phishers have understood this for a long time. The first step in critically engaging with information online is therefore to recognize that just because something appears true does not, in fact, make it true. Given the continued rise of disinformation, this is a lesson that is more important now than ever. In fact, it is unlikely disinformation will ever become extinct.
by Doug Kreitzberg | Jun 19, 2020 | Cyber Awareness, Human Factor, Phishing
When you want to form a new habit or learn something new, you may think the best way to start is to dedicate as much time and energy as you can to it. If you want a learn new language, for example, you may think that spending a couple of hours every day doing vocab drills will help you learn faster. Well, according to behavioral scientist BJ Fogg, you might be taking the wrong approach. Instead, it’s better to focus on what Fogg calls tiny habits: small, easy to accomplish actions that keep you engaged without overwhelming you.
Sure, if you study Spanish for three hours a day you may learn at a fast rate. The problem, however, is that too often we try to do too much too soon. By setting unrealistic goals or expecting too much from ourselves, new habits can be hard to maintain. Instead, if you only spend five minutes a day, chances are you will be able to sustain and grow the habit over a longer period of time and have a better chance of retaining what you’ve learned.
The Keys To Success
According to Fogg, in order to create lasting behavior change, three elements come together at the same moment need to come together:
- Motivation: You have to want to make a change.
- Ability: The new habit has to be achievable.
- Prompt: There needs to be some notification or reminder that tells you its time to do the behavior.
Creating and sustaining new habits requires all three of these elements to be successful — with any element missing, your new behavior won’t occur. For example, if you want go for a 5 mile run, you’re going to need a lot of motivation to do it. But if you set smaller, easy to achieve goals — like running for 5 minutes — you only need a little motivation to do the new behavior.
The other key factor is to help yourself feel successful. Spending 2 minutes reviewing Spanish tenses may not feel like a big accomplishment, but by celebrating every little win you will reinforce your motivation to continue.
The Future of Cyber Awareness
Tiny habits can not only help people learn a new language or start flossing, it can also play an important role in forming safer, more conscious online practices. Our cyber awareness training program, The PhishMarket™, is designed with these exact principles in mind. The program combines two elements, both based on Fogg’s model:
Phish Simulations: Using phish simulations help expose people to different forms of phish attacks, and motivates them to be more alert when looking at their inbox. While most programs scold or punish users who fall for a phish, The PhishMarket™ instead uses positive reinforcement to encourage users to keep going.
Micro-Lessons: Unlike most training programs that just send you informative videos and infographics, The PhishMarket™ exclusively uses short, interactive lessons that engage users and encourage them to participate and discuss what they’ve learned. By keeping the lessons short, users only need to dedicate a few minutes a day and aren’t inundated with a barrage of information all at once.
Creating smart and safe online habits is vital to our world today. But traditional training techniques are too often boring, inconsistent, and end up feeling like a chore. Instead, we believe the best way to help people make meaningful changes in their online behavior is to focus on the small things. By leveraging Fogg’s tiny habits model, The PhishMarket™ has successfully helped users feel more confident in their ability to spot phish and disinformation.
