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Proofpoint study highlights potential email fraud risk
roofpoint , a leading
P cybersecurity and compliance company , has released research identifying that only 25 ( 50 %) of the top 50 oil and gas companies that have operations in the Middle East have a Domain-based Message Authentication , Reporting & Conformance ( DMARC ) record in place , meaning that half of them are leaving customers at heightened risk of email fraud . The lack of a DMARC record makes companies potentially more susceptible to cybercriminals spoofing their identity and increasing the risk of email fraud targeting their customers .
Perhaps more worryingly , only five out of 50 ( 10 %) oil and gas companies have ‘ reject ’ in place , which means a whopping 90 % are not proactively blocking fraudulent emails from reaching customers . Reject is the strictest and recommended level of DMARC protection , a setting and policy that blocks fraudulent emails from reaching their intended target .
DMARC , which is an email validation protocol designed to protect domain names from being misused by cybercriminals , authenticates the sender ’ s identity before allowing the message to reach its intended destination . It verifies that the purported domain of the sender has not been impersonated and relies on the established DKIM ( DomainKeys Identified Mail ) and SPF ( Sender Policy Framework ) standards to ensure the email is not spoofing the trusted domain .
TrickBot emerges as UAE ’ s top malware threat
heck Point Research , the threat intelligence arm
C of Check Point Software Technologies , a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions globally , has published its latest UAE Threat Index for January 2021 . Researchers found that banking trojan , Trickbot , impacted 7 % of organisations in the UAE , while the EMOTET trojan which has remained in first place in the top malware list globally for a second month running impacted 6 % of businesses in the UAE .
Trickbot is a modular banking Trojan that targets the Windows platform and is mostly delivered via spam campaigns or other malware families such as EMOTET . Trickbot sends information about the infected system and can also download and execute arbitrary modules from a large array of available modules within a compromised network . Once a machine is infected , the Trickbot gang , the threat actors behind this malware , utilise this wide array of modules not only to steal banking credentials from the target PC , but also for lateral movement and reconnaissance on the targeted organisation itself , prior to delivering a company-wide targeted ransomware attack .
“ We ’ re seeing an increase in ransomware and malware attacks in the UAE since the pandemic began last year . While EMOTET continues to impact businesses , it is interesting to see how quickly Trickbot has evolved as top malware targeting organisations in the UAE ,” said Ram Narayanan , Country Manager , Check Point Software Technologies – Middle East . “ Considering UAE is currently ranked number 32 on the high-risk index , businesses must be extra vigilant and deploy efficient technologies to prevent these attacks in real time to ensure these malwares don ’ t cause further serious damage by being the gateway to a ransomware attack .”
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