MSPNetworks Blog

Over the past few years, huge scamming operations have operated in Southeast Asia, and now they are spreading. These scams—known as pig butchering scams—cause serious harm, as in an estimated $75 billion worldwide in 2023.

With these sorts of operations spreading, let’s go over what pig butchering is. 

Potential data breaches are increasingly problematic for organizations, and the most common way that data is stolen is through phishing attacks. Phishing attacks are currently one of the most pervasive threats on the Internet, and you need to understand them to thwart their effectiveness against your users. Let’s explore what exactly a phishing attack consists of and some best practices you can use to defend your network against them.

Encryption is a powerful weapon against hackers that can prevent them from stealing your data and leveraging it against you. Encryption, in its most basic textbook definition, converts your readable data into an indecipherable jumble that can only be reassembled through the use of an encryption key. Small businesses absolutely must utilize encryption to protect customer information, financial records, and other important or sensitive business data. This ensures that it is as protected as possible against those that might do you harm.

Scammers look to take advantage of someone else for their own gain, but there are some scammers out there who are trying to scam the scammers to teach them a lesson. One such individual is “Kitboga,” a content creator who calls themselves a “scam baiter.”

Believe it or not, if you were to rank your business’ greatest threats, risk factors, and vulnerabilities, your users would most likely belong somewhere toward the top. Human error is a big challenge to your security simply because cybercriminals understand that your employees are, in fact, human and will, in fact, make mistakes.

Let’s explore how cyberattacks exploit this tendency and how you can better protect your business from the ramifications.

Today, cybersecurity is everyone's business. It's not just the IT department's job anymore. When a hack happens, it can feel like a personal violation. It's scary, confusing, and you might not know what to do next.

Safeguarding your online accounts is an important part of maintaining network security. With the increasing number of cyber threats, relying on strong, unique passwords is no longer optional—it's a necessity. Remembering complex passwords for numerous accounts can be challenging, however. This is where password managers come in handy, offering a secure and convenient solution to managing your credentials.

In this blog, we do our best to give people the knowledge they need to protect themselves and their organizations while operating online. With all the digital tools that we all have come to rely on, it’s important to understand the result of a data breach on organizations and their customers. In today’s blog, we go through six of the most devastating data breaches that happened in 2023. 

T-Mobile 

At the very beginning of 2023, telecommunications giant T-Mobile announced that it had suffered what ended up being the most noteworthy data breaches of the entire year. Cybercriminals were able to use the T-Mobile API to steal data…for months. When T-Mobile found out about the attack, more than 37 million customers had their personal data exposed. Unfortunately for the company, they were the victims of a second breach only months later that cost the business more than $100 million to remediate. Overall customer names, billing addresses, phone numbers, and emails were leaked online. 

Mailchimp

Also early in 2023, digital marketing company Mailchimp discovered a data breach that affected user accounts and employee information and credentials. They were the victim of a social engineering attack that was unfortunately successful. Victims had their names, store web addresses and email addresses stolen. 

ChatGPT

One of the major innovators of AI was the victim of a serious cyberattack in March of 2023. The attack exposed the first and last names of users and their email addresses along with access to payment addresses and the last four digits of their credit cards. Open AI, ChatGPT’s parent company, was forced to take the service down briefly to address the breach.

Yum! Brands

The parent company of major fast food chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut was attacked in April of 2023. When it was discovered, the breach was thought to have only affected corporate data, but after careful consideration, it was found that some employee personal data was exposed in the breach. The result was stark as the company was forced to close down hundreds of locations outside of the United States and continues to pay handsomely for the breach.

Activision

One of the largest and most successful video game publishers: Activision found they were hacked in February 2023, a breach that occurred in December of 2022. The company's release schedule was unearthed and so was some employee data. A third-party security contractor found that the breach was the result of an SMS phishing attack.  Employee emails, phone numbers, salary details, and work locations were exposed in the breach.

PharMerica

In the largest data breach of a HIPAA-covered entity in 2023, the pharmacy provider PharMerica reported that 5.8 million individuals’ personal information was exposed in March of 2023. The breach was the result of a sophisticated attack carried out by the ransomware group “Money Message.” Some of the information exposed in the breach includes names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, individual prescription information, and health insurance data. 

These are the extreme examples, but your business is just as (or more) susceptible to a data breach than any of them. That’s why you need to take your cybersecurity strategies seriously. If you would like to learn more about what you can do to keep your business as secure as it can be, including strategies for employee training, data, network security, and much more, give us a call today at (516) 403-9001.

Maintaining network security has proven to be more difficult for organizations as time has gone on. Like the people trying to keep them out of networks they don’t have access to, hackers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their cyberattacks and achieve various malicious objectives. Here are some ways in which hackers are using AI.

Automated Attacks

Hackers can use AI to automate various stages of an attack, from reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning to exploitation and data exfiltration. This can significantly speed up the attack process and allow for more efficient targeting of vulnerabilities.

Phishing Attacks

AI can be used to create highly convincing phishing emails and messages. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques can generate text that appears legitimate, making it more likely that recipients will fall for the phishing attempt.

Password Cracking 

AI can be used to accelerate the process of cracking passwords by rapidly trying different combinations and patterns. Machine learning algorithms can also analyze user behavior and patterns to predict passwords more effectively.

Malware Development 

Hackers can use AI to design and customize malware that is difficult to detect by traditional antivirus solutions. This involves using AI to obfuscate code and create polymorphic malware that constantly changes its appearance.

Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

AI can be used to launch more sophisticated DDoS attacks. AI-powered bots can adapt to defensive measures, making it harder to mitigate the attack.

Exfiltration 

AI can be employed to intelligently identify valuable data within an infected system and exfiltrate it while evading detection. This can involve compressing and encrypting data to minimize its footprint.

Social Engineering

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can be used to impersonate legitimate individuals in social engineering attacks, making it easier to manipulate victims into divulging sensitive information.

Deepfakes

AI can be used to create convincing deepfake videos or audio recordings, which can be used for impersonation or disinformation campaigns.

If hackers are using AI, it is important that your organization get the advanced AI-integrated tools needed to thwart hacking attempts. If you would like more information about how hackers go about using advanced technology, including AI, to try and circumvent attempts to keep them out of accounts and off your network, give the IT security experts at MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001. 

When it comes to valuable data, hackers will go out of their way to try and steal it, placing businesses in dangerous situations. In particular, healthcare data is attractive to hackers, and considering how lucrative the prospect of healthcare data is, companies need to take extra precautions to protect it. But what is it about healthcare data that makes it so attractive, anyway? Let’s dig into the consequences of potential attacks on healthcare data.

It Sells for a Lot on the Black Market

You’d be shocked to see the value of data on the black market, particularly personal health information and medical records, insurance details, and prescription information. Hackers know that there is a high demand for this data, so they have no problem trying to take advantage of the market.

Personal Profiles Aid in Further Attacks

If a hacker can steal a personal profile from a healthcare provider, they gain access to all kinds of information, like medical history, genetic data, lifestyle choices, and more. This information gives hackers all they need to launch customized attacks against individuals based on their profile.

Identity Theft is a Possibility

Identity theft and financial fraud can often be a direct result of healthcare attacks. Once hackers have stolen records, they can impersonate individuals or obtain other medical information and prescription medications, as well as commit insurance fraud. Victims suffer in a variety of ways, including financial loss, damaged credit, and inability to receive medical treatment.

Blackmail and Extortion Can Scare Victims Into Acting

With sensitive personal records such as healthcare data, individuals often find themselves on the receiving end of blackmail attempts or extortion. They might threaten to reveal conditions or other personal information regarding treatments. For public figures or others in sensitive professions, this can be damaging.

Medical Research and Progress Could Grind to a Halt

Medical research requires that data be accurate, and if hackers steal or alter information in healthcare records, medical research grinds to a halt. This puts any attempt at developing new treatments, understanding disease patterns, or improving public health in jeopardy. 

Hackers Take Advantage of Weaker Security Systems

Healthcare organizations often have weaker security measures in place, putting them at greater risk of being attacked. These organizations are often more focused on providing better patient care, meaning their investment priorities are elsewhere, leading to more potential for security vulnerabilities in the process.

There is So Much Data to Steal

Consider how many patients a hospital might see over the course of a year. Now consider that the hospital will retain those records for an extremely long time. This shocking amount of data makes hospitals and other healthcare providers targets that have a lot to lose as a result.

Of course, it’s not just healthcare data that’s at risk of theft, destruction, or worse—all data is vulnerable to this type of treatment if it’s not managed appropriately. Let MSPNetworks help you address this with our managed IT services. Learn more by calling us today at (516) 403-9001.

Your business’ computing infrastructure is a pretty resilient system. It has all types of tools added on to keep malicious code, bad actors, and even sabotage from ruining the good thing you have. This reliability has led to hackers changing the way that they go about their business. Nowadays, most of the attacks that affect businesses are phishing attacks. In today’s blog we will go through the elements of a phishing attack and how you can protect your business from them.

There are really four things you have to be aware of when you are considering if you’re looking at a phishing email. Let’s go through them now:

There is a Real Sense of Urgency to the Message

While a lot of the messages that we get in business have a demanding tone, there is something extraordinarily panicked about a phishing message. Essentially, phishing messages will urge the reader to take immediate action. This action could be in the form of clicking on links, downloading attachments, or giving over credentials that the scammer will then use to infiltrate organizational computing networks to deploy malware or siphon data.

Poor Grammar and Spelling

Many of these messages are created with the notion that the reader will be fooled by the overall legitimacy of the message. Many times they are subterfuge emails sent from a would-be financial institution or an insurance carrier; some business that has legitimacy. Typically, there are signs within the message itself that are blatant signs of its illegitimacy. Variables like misspelled words, poor use of grammar, and other red flags can tip users that the message is not legitimate. 

The Domain Is Wrong for the Message

When someone sends an official email from a business, typically the domain name of the email address that is sending the email will represent the organization that the message is coming from. If the address doesn’t come from the organization that is sending the message, that is a giant red flag. Most reputable organizations pay good money to host their own domain and if the address you are getting a message from doesn’t represent that, you have to believe that it is a scam. 

Suspicious Tone to the Message

You know the type of messages that you typically get. If a message you receive doesn’t meet the criteria of “normal”, you should immediately look to verify with the presumed sender of the message that it is legitimate. If it feels off, it probably is. Make sure you get this confirmation through a different means of communication.

Phishing attacks are everywhere. If you get messages that don't feel right, don’t interact with them—follow up. For more great tips and tricks return to our blog soon. 

Even the solutions designed to keep businesses and organizations safe are vulnerable to the threat of a cyberattack, as when it all boils down, these tools are still software solutions, no matter how secure they might be. The company in question today—Barracuda—is a huge name in the cybersecurity industry, and it has become the victim of a zero-day exploit. Let’s go over how you can prevent your business from experiencing the same thing.

A Vulnerability Was Discovered in Barracuda’s Email Gateway Security

A vulnerability was discovered in Barracuda’s mail Gateway Security application only after it was exploited. This is the part of the email security system that scans email attachments, so it’s an important one. The breach was discovered on May 19th, and patches were swiftly deployed to resolve the vulnerability.

The official statement from the company is as follows:

“Barracuda recently became aware of a security incident impacting our Email Security Gateway appliance (ESG). The incident resulted from a previously unknown vulnerability in our ESG. A security patch to address the vulnerability was applied to all ESG appliances worldwide on Saturday, May 20, 2023. Based on our investigation to date, we've identified unauthorized access affecting a small subset of appliances. As a mitigating measure, all appliances received a second patch on May 21, 2023, addressing the indicators of potential compromise identified to date. We have reached out to the specific customers whose appliances are believed to be impacted at this time. If a customer has not received notice from us via the ESG user interface, we have no reason to believe their environment has been impacted at this time and there are no actions for the customer to take. We thank you for your understanding and support as we work through this issue and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.”

Explaining Zero-Day Exploits

Zero-day exploits are those that were previously unknown to security researchers, only having been discovered after they are actively being targeted by a threat. The severity of these exploits can vary, but they are extremely difficult to detect, as they often go undiscovered and undetected for quite a long time. After all, you can’t protect against something that you don’t know exists. Eventually, these vulnerabilities can become serious problems and logistical nightmares for security companies and businesses alike.

What Can Be Done to Stop Them

The worst part of dealing with a zero-day vulnerability is not knowing if one exists, as well as not knowing how long they have existed for. In the case of this exploit, it doesn’t appear to be too long, but any vulnerability in Barracuda’s ESG system is going to cause quite a stir. Businesses use a lot of software throughout the course of their operations, and the same issue could happen for any application on your network. You need to have a strategy in place to handle potential threats as they arise or become known, and it starts with making sure that patches are tested and deployed as soon as they are available.

MSPNetworks can help your business deploy patches and updates in a quick and efficient manner using our remote patch deployment solutions. We can keep your software secure and safe from all threats, and if zero-day exploits do arise, we’ll do what we can to deploy fixes and assess damages. To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001 today.

Did you know that tomorrow is World Password Day, 2023? As the result of a campaign to spread awareness of the importance of sufficiently secure passwords, it has become an annual reminder of how critical sufficient passwords are to proper cybersecurity…despite passwords not being sufficient protection on their own. In light of tomorrow’s observance, let’s take some time to review why passwords are important to get right, and what else you need to have in place.

World Password Day Remains Critical to Your Security…

Back in 2005, a security researcher by the name of Mark Burnett wrote a book—”Perfect Passwords”—that included his advice that everyone establish their own personal “password days,” where they take the time to go through all their passwords. Intel took his advice and turned it into a global observance, selecting the first Thursday in May as the established World Password Day. Since that day in 2013, this day has been designated as the day to update and refresh the many, many passwords we rely on each and every day in both personal and professional life.

Remember, as you do so, to keep a few key best practices in mind:

• Your passwords should all be unique, without any being repeated across accounts.
• Alphanumeric characters and symbols should be used wherever possible.
• Likewise, each password should be sufficiently complex and difficult for anyone to guess. A passphrase, made up of unrelated words, is another option.
• Passwords should never be stored or saved someplace insecure, like a scrap sheet of paper or a notepad doc. The only acceptable place to save them is in a standalone password manager that has been approved by IT.

…But You Can’t Stop at Passwords Alone

It is also important to acknowledge that passwords aren’t really as secure as we all would hope. There’s a reason that we—and many, many applications—so often push for multi-factor authentication. Requiring a second identification, usually in the form of a generated code or biometric proof, makes it far more difficult for a cybercriminal to access an account they aren’t supposed to access. Honestly, it’s becoming less and less of a recommendation, and more of a mandate for many.

So, While You Should Consider Your Passwords’ Strength Tomorrow, You Should Also Augment Your Security with MFA

We can help! Reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 for assistance with your account security, as well as that of your business as a whole.

This past January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an announcement that they had targeted and taken down the servers for a Dark Web organization responsible for the Hive ransomware group. While there is certainly cause for celebration here, one major statistic is enough reason to continue being concerned.

Only About 20% of Hive’s Victims Reported Their Problems to Law Enforcement

That’s over seven months, too. This is nowhere near enough, and even worse is the fact that law enforcement officials are under the impression that this number is high. There are several reasons why this might be the case, however. Some of them include:

• Federal investigators would be just another distraction to internal IT teams and complicate the process of data recovery efforts.
• Businesses might just not think to report it in the highly-stressful circumstances following a ransomware attack.
• Some organizations might believe that involving authorities would only escalate the attacks or get in the way of their own investigations.

However, the FBI’s goal is to identify those responsible for a given attack and to recover the data and/or funds, working discreetly to lend its aid to those impacted.

The FBI is putting forth effort to improve relationships with businesses so that proactive measures can be taken, in the event incidents occur. These resolutions can occur much more quickly if the organization has a good relationship with impacted businesses.

If You Work with Us, You Can Bet on the FBI’s Support

Considering the plethora of resources at the government’s disposal, it would be foolish not to involve the FBI in any ransomware attack. Furthermore, information from your attack could prove useful in finding and eliminating threat actors so that others don’t have to suffer the same fate as you—a worthy cause to say the least.

We’ll still work to prevent attacks whenever possible—after all, that is the best way to respond to attacks of any kind, to prevent them rather than deal with them as they happen—but that’s a different story. To get started, give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: lots of gift-giving and online shopping. Regardless of what you and your family celebrate this holiday season, you should be prepared to handle the influx of phishing attacks which always surface around this time every year, including both the usual methods and the more sophisticated ones.

Here are three strategies you can use to avoid phishing attacks and effectively navigate the holiday season without putting your financial or personal information at risk.

Check With the Online Retailer About Orders

Sometimes you might receive an email claiming that there is something wrong with an order. Maybe it’s your financial information, or maybe it’s your shipping information. In any case, these kinds of phishing tricks are using the commercialization of the holiday season to convince you to hand over your sensitive information.

If you receive an email or a text about an order that needs to be updated, then we recommend you go directly to the website in question and log in through their official login portal—especially not through any links contained in emails or text messages.

Don’t Click on Links in Emails (or Texts)

The same advice that works for untrusted links also applies during the holiday season, when emails and texts are being received by the dozens to ensure that orders are confirmed, payments are processed, and shipments are arriving. Don’t get so caught up in receiving these notifications in your email and on your smartphone that you forget to keep security in mind, though. It’s easy to send a text that looks like it is from some random retailer asking you to plug in your payment information again or to confirm a shipping address, only the message isn’t from a retailer and it’s instead coming from a hacker or other cybercriminal to either infect your system with malware or steal credentials from you.

Again, when in doubt, check your order information on the retailer’s official website, not from a link received in an email or to your smartphone.

Only Do Business with Trusted Retailers

This tip is more of just a “be careful of where you shop” caution. During the course of the holidays, people are browsing the Internet all over to find the perfect gifts for their loved ones. Sometimes this search might take them to corners of the Internet they didn’t know existed, where niche online shops thrive. While we are all for supporting small businesses, we just want to raise awareness of how you go about choosing who to trust for online purchases.

The basic premise of it is to only plug your card information into secured portals hosted by trusted retailers. Look at the company’s history, location information, support and other contact numbers, and so on to ensure they are an authentic and trustworthy person to purchase gifts through.

Stay safe this holiday season, and MSPNetworks hopes you enjoy the time spent with your friends and family!

While security researchers do their best to find security vulnerabilities in software and systems before they are actively exploited by attackers, they can’t be successful all the time. There are too many threats and too many variables to consider, and zero-day exploits are often discovered well after they are actively being exploited by threats. How can you keep zero-day exploits from impacting your business?

What Exactly Is a Zero-Day Exploit?

To put it simply, zero-day exploits are flaws in systems that are discovered only after they have been targeted by a threat. The severity of the attacks can vary wildly, ranging from discrete and covert hacks that go undetected for some time, to in-your-face hacks that don’t care about being discovered by the user. In the case of the former, zero-day exploits can go undocumented for so long that it becomes an even greater threat and logistical nightmare for security researchers and developers.

Why Are They So Dangerous?

The main reason why zero-day exploits are so devastating is that they are undocumented and therefore hard to predict or take action to prevent. This unknown factor means that people often don’t know they exist until the flaw is being leveraged by hackers, making it even more crucial that developers act with haste to patch the flaw.

The problem here is that issuing patches to these types of issues takes time—time which is of the essence. As long as the threat is actively being exploited, users remain at risk until the patch has been issued, and after the lid has been blown off the vulnerability, you can bet that hackers will do all they can to take advantage of the exploit before it is fixed.

What Can You Do About Them?

Zero-day flaws are inherently dangerous because security researchers and professionals have precious little time to address them. That said, you do have some options available to you to protect your infrastructure as best you can, at least until the patch has been issued.

First, you want to consider a comprehensive security solution designed specifically for enterprise-grade security. MSPNetworks can help you implement such a system to mitigate most security threats. At the same time, you’ll want to ensure your team has the training they need to identify potential threats and the reporting structure for how they can let IT know if something is amiss. We also recommend that you actively monitor your systems to detect abnormalities before they cause irreparable damage. All in all, you want a proactive strategy rather than a reactive strategy for your IT.

MSPNetworks can help you put this plan into practice. To learn more about what we can do for your organization, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging applications. With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is known for its relative security, as it is one of the few messaging applications that offers end-to-end encryption. A modified version of WhatsApp, called YoWhatsApp, has been reportedly deploying malware.

What is YoWhatsApp?

YoWhatsApp is an unofficial version of WhatsApp that users can download and install on their smartphones. The developers claim it offers the ability for users to lock chats, send messages to unsaved numbers, and customize the look and feel of the application with various theme options. There are other unofficial WhatsApp versions out there with similar enhancements.

This sort of thing isn’t new. Ever since the early days of instant messaging software, developers have been building “enhanced” versions of popular messaging applications. Back in the early 2000s when AOL Instant Messenger was popular, there were several unofficial versions that offered additional features that removed ads, allowed more anonymity, and offered more features than the source material. However, using these third-party versions often came with some risk—sometimes they contained malware or made your account less secure.

This definitely appears to be the case with YoWhatsApp. 

What Are the Risks of Using an Unofficial Version of WhatsApp?

According to a recent Kaspersky Report, YoWhatsApp distributes Android malware known as the Triada Trojan. The same was discovered last year with FMWhatsApp, another modified unofficial version of the application.

Triada gains control over your SMS messages, and can enroll its victims in paid subscriptions without their knowledge and impersonate them, sending spam and malicious content to others from their phone number.

This, in turn, can then affect users who actually use the official versions of WhatsApp. 

While, as far as we know, WhatsApp is generally a safe application to use, the various third-party versions are not.

Understand What You Install

The concept of third-party developers creating unofficial “enhanced” versions of popular software isn’t anything new. It isn’t always a risk either, but you need to consider that unofficial versions aren’t usually as supported or secure as the official ones. If someone made a variation of Microsoft Outlook that offered some new features that the original didn’t have, and then Microsoft found and patched some vulnerabilities in their original version of Microsoft Outlook, it would be up to the third-party developer to also patch and update their version. You can’t really rely on that. You also need to consider that cybercriminals will go to great lengths to extort money from a wide set of users, and that includes building a “better” version of a popular app and paying to run ads to get users to download it and install their ransomware.

Whenever you install anything on your PC or smartphone, be sure to check to see if you are getting it from the official developer. If you aren’t sure, take some time to do a Google search, or reach out to MSPNetworks to have us help you. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

It probably isn’t a question you’ve put much thought to, but tell me: who do you think feels the greatest impact from card skimming schemes, where a payment card’s data is captured so a cybercriminal can make use of the card’s associated account? While it isn’t a good situation for anyone, some are impacted more than others.

Unfortunately, card skimming is even worse for those who rely on prepaid cards provided by the state for food assistance. Let’s consider why this is.

Skimming Losses are Worse for Those Receiving Assistance

Authorities across the country have taken note of increased losses associated with those receiving assistance through the Electronic Benefits Transfer (better known as EBT), which permits participants with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to pay for their food purchases.

When a SNAP card is used, the associated EBT account is debited so the store is reimbursed for the purchase. In this way, the EBT card is effectively a debit card—they even have an associated PIN and can be used to withdraw money from an ATM.

However, EBT cards largely lack the protections that most other payment cards have, like the more secure smart chip technology that makes these cards harder to duplicate, or the fraud protections that other payment cards have. If SNAP funds are fraudulently stolen and spent, the rightful recipient has little recourse to take. They’re effectively out that money…money that they need as a member of the program.

It isn’t exactly news that criminals and scammers have found ways to steal card data, either…and they’re getting better at doing it surreptitiously. The devices used to “skim” data off of payment cards (cleverly referred to as “skimmers”) can now be hidden inside cash machines, or camouflaged to look like just another part of the device. This makes it more challenging to spot these skimmers, putting more people at risk in general of having their data cloned and used to create additional copies of payment cards that the thief can use or sell.

What Can Be Done?

Well, short of more states implementing improved security measures into their EBT cards—eliminating the magnetic strip and replacing it with the modern chips that other card types use—it really falls to the user and the business where an ATM or other card-reading device is located to prevent these issues. Keep an eye out for people trying to tamper with these machines, and discontinue its use if you can until it has been fully checked by a professional for card skimming devices. As a customer, give any card reader a close look before you swipe to see if it looks at all unusual.

MSPNetworks is here to help keep your business more secure and efficient, both for your benefit and that of your clients and customers. Find out how we can help via our managed services by calling (516) 403-9001.

For millions of people, the rubber ducky is a benign reminder of childhood. Depending on when you were a child, the rendition of Sesame Street’s Ernie singing “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one,” is ingrained in your mind every time you hear the term. Unfortunately, the Rubber Ducky we are going to tell you about today has only fond recollection for people who are looking to breach networks they aren’t authorized to access or deliver malware payloads that are designed to cause havoc. 

What is the Rubber Ducky?

The Rubber Ducky is a device that looks like a regular flash drive that you would use to transfer files from one PC to another. We’ve all used them, and with most of us moving to cloud-based platforms, they don’t seem to be as popular as they once were. Well, despite that notion, the USB flash drive industry is growing at a pretty impressive 7% year-over-year, and is currently a $7+ billion industry. That means there are a lot of USB flash drives being created every year and that means that there are millions of them just floating around. 

The Rubber Ducky is more than your average USB flash drive, however. It looks like one, but when it is plugged into a computer, it is read as a simple accessory like a keyboard. This means that any defensive measure that is set up to thwart potentially dangerous data transmission is already worked around when the device gets plugged in, making it much easier for the device to work for the hacker’s end goals, whatever they are. Any keystroke taken while the device is open, is trusted, making the sky the proverbial limit when it comes to device access. 

What Kind of Threat Is the Modern Rubber Ducky?

Any USB dongle needs to be carefully considered before inserting it into your computer, but the Rubber Ducky is designed to overcome the limitations of previous versions of the hardware. The new version makes a major upgrade in that it runs on the “DuckyScript” programming language that the device will use to create demands on any target machine. Other iterations of the Rubber Ducky were limited to writing what are known as “keystroke sequences”, the new DuckyScript is a feature-rich language, which lets users write functions, store variables, and use logic to make it possible to carry out complex computations. 

Now the Rubber Ducky can determine which operating system is running a machine and deploy code that allows for hackers to get into the appropriate software. It can also mask automated executions by adding a delay between keystrokes to make the computing system think that it is human. Most intrusively, it can steal data from any target by encoding it in binary, giving users the ability to extract critical information (such as saved authentication) with ease.

What You Can Do

The best practice here is to not allow strange USB dongles to be placed in your device’s USB drives. Unless you know exactly where the device has come from and what is on it, avoiding interactions with it is the best way to keep away anything unsavory that happens to be on the device to interact with your computer’s OS, and by extension, your network.

Being wary of hardware is just one part of keeping your business and personal information secure. MSPNetworks can help build a cybersecurity strategy that takes into account all types of malware deployment methodology, keeping you from any problematic experiences with your IT. Give us a call today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more. 

How often do you get emails from individuals claiming to be working with a business who wants to do business with yours or sell you a product, completely unsolicited and even perhaps a bit suspicious? These types of messages can often land small businesses in hot water, as it only takes one phishing email landing in the wrong inbox at the wrong time to put your business in jeopardy.

The biggest problem with phishing emails is one that you might not expect. It’s certainly problematic enough that phishing scams are increasingly more common, and it’s definitely a challenge to ensure that your infrastructure stays secure under such circumstances. However, you’ll find that the major challenge that cybersecurity professionals face in regard to phishing scams is that hackers are just too crafty with how they continuously adjust their tactics.

Phishing attacks can come in several different manners and tactics, each of them focusing on the fact that the weakest points of your security infrastructure have to do with the human elements of your cybersecurity strategy. They might come in the form of an unsolicited email, or they could come from a phone call asking for sensitive information. No matter what, though, they are going to find ways to circumvent your security protections somehow simply because hackers realize that their best chance of getting through to your organization is through your employees.

And this is not even taking into account the scam emails that are so convincing that even the spam filters cannot capture these potentially dangerous messages. If a hacker takes the time to research your organization and make their message seem like an authentic message, there is a chance that it can bypass your spam filters entirely and become a very real threat to your business. These types of messages can be difficult to identify, especially if your users have not had any formal training about phishing messages.

Simply put, you absolutely cannot rely on your spam filter to keep you safe from the countless threats out there. Messages that don’t automatically get caught by the software’s filters could very well still be phishing emails that have been tailor-made to strike your organization with a social engineering attack.

We always recommend that businesses implement not only enterprise-grade spam filtering to keep the majority of threats out of your employees’ inboxes, but also to train your employees to identify potential threats. This is a type of preventative approach that all businesses should implement, and it’s one that is often overlooked. It’s easy to think that technology can solve all of your problems, and while it’s pretty likely to make improvements to your security infrastructure, it’s only as effective as the people who work for you.

It might be impossible to guarantee that your employees never see a phishing message, but you can optimize the chances that they will act appropriately if you provide them with the correct training and IT resources. MSPNetworks can help fulfill both for your business. We can equip your business with enterprise-grade solutions to keep threats off your network while also providing the training needed to inform your team’s security practices.

To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.