Hacking Gang Turns To New Tactics In Malware Campaign

It has been reported that Off-the-shelf malware kits and mass phishing campaigns are enabling a small group of Nigerian cybercriminals to conduct hacking campaigns against targets around the world – and the threat they pose to organisations is increasing. The group, dubbed SilverTerrier, isn’t a sophisticated operation, but has access to a number of malware families – including information stealers and remote-access trojans – which are distributed with the aim of infecting victims and stealing data. Eyal Benishti, CEO & Founder at IRONSCALES commented below.

Eyal Benishti, CEO & Founder at IRONSCALES: 

“Phishing is not new- but this just goes to show that it is still as effective for cybercriminals as it was years ago. By using familiar subject matter, phishers are one step closer to baiting unsuspecting victims into their nets, and if done correctly, will consequently have access to all sorts of valuable data and information.  If a phishing email such as this happens to drop into an employee’s inbox whilst at work, this could quickly become a problem for the entire organisation.

To combat this, focus must move down the stack to the recipients inbox, that harnesses both human detection and machine intelligence, to automate and respond at scale to these types of attacks. By examining user communications and meta data to establish a baseline, anomalies in communications are easily spotted and automatically flagged as suspicious, to help people make smarter and quick decisions regarding suspicious emails within the mailbox.

It is also key to remain vigilant- we all play a part in cybersecurity after all. If you’re ever unsure, contact your IT department, and never interact with the email.”