Following the news that 3.12tb of data was stolen from music streaming service Vevo late on Friday, Sam Curry, Chief Security Officer at Cybereason commented below.
Sam Curry, Chief Security Officer at Cybereason:
“While we don’t yet know a lot of the specifics on the Vevo breach, if it is phishing related the best answer to these continued breaches is that we must improve technology. There is no silver bullet to preventing phishing scams, as long as users are involved. The security industry needs to design technology for how users really behave and not some mythical ideal user. Like some 1980’s public service announcement to recruit GI’s, we still believe that more training is the best way to deal with phishing scams, but it’s not. And guess what? Today, the million dollar solution doesn’t exist, but as an industry we can start building solutions that work with how people really behave instead of continually trying to change their behaviour because between now and the end of mankind people will keep clicking on stuff.
In the meantime, implement these precautionary measures to reduce the risk of being victimized by a phishing scam:
- Always use updated antivirus and firewall software. This will help protect from malicious software and keyloggers.
- In addition to having virus protection, use a password manager to manage your online credentials and have multiple passwords. Different passwords ensure that if a breach happens, attackers can’t use your credentials across different sites.
- Lastly, be sceptical. Educate yourself on what phishing schemes look like, be weary of suspicious attachments or emails requesting personally identifiable information or account details.
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