We continue our three-part series sharing real-world examples of impersonation fraud, along with explanations of the methods of attack and appropriate responses. Impersonation Protection is a cybersecurity solution designed to protect organizations from email-based impersonation attacks. These attacks typically involve cybercriminals pretending to be trusted individuals or entities using social-engineering tactics to deceive recipients into taking harmful actions, such as revealing sensitive information, transferring funds, or clicking on malicious links. This month, we focus on a credit union cyber attack.
Impersonation Attack on a Credit Union
An employee at a credit union receives an email that appears to be from a senior manager. The email requests that the employee download and review an attached document related to an upcoming audit.
Methods of Attack
- Spoofed Email Address: The attacker uses an email address that closely resembles the senior manager’s real address.
- Malicious Attachment: The attachment contains malware designed to capture keystrokes and gain access to the credit union’s internal network.
Outcome:
The employee, believing the email is legitimate, opens the attachment. The malware installs on the employee’s computer, allowing the attacker to capture login credentials and other sensitive information. With these credentials, the attacker can access the credit union’s systems, potentially compromising member accounts and financial data.
Applying Lessons Learned:
Employee Training: Regularly train employees to recognize phishing and impersonation attempts, emphasizing the importance of verifying unexpected requests.
Attachment Security: Implement advanced email security solutions to scan and block malicious attachments before they reach employees.
Network Monitoring: Continuously monitor network activity for unusual behavior that could indicate a breach and respond promptly to any detected threats.
A robust cybersecurity plan uses AI-Based Comprehensive Threat Detection, Real-Time Protection, Brand Monitoring, User Awareness Training and Incident Response to mitigate risk and address vulnerabilities. Organizations who utilize such tools ensure an increase in Security, Operational Efficiency, Employee Protection, Regulatory Compliance and Scalability.
Many of our clients are CUs, so we take the subject of credit union cyber attack quite seriously. Next month, we’ll take a look at a similar Impersonation attempt against a Municipality. For more information on how to protect your organization from cyber threats, both technological and via social engineering, contact Team BTS.
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