The IT Nerd

Hot on the heels of the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank, there are growing concerns regarding threat actors using the news to target users with phishing and credential stealing attempts. I am going to be watching this story closely to see if that is the case. But in the meantime, I already have commentary from Yaron Kassner, CTO and Cofounder, Silverfort:

     “As always, uncertainty and panic are threat actors’ closest allies, and we are already witnessing a distinct surge in fraud attacks that attempt to leverage the confusion to lure users into fraudulent transfers as well as credential disclosure.

“For example, threat actors will impersonate suppliers, claiming it has moved from SVB to another bank, urgently asking you to wire payment to this new account.

“Additionally, attackers will send emails impersonating FDIC, SVB or another government agency with a reassuring message that a deposit in SVB can be fully returned. However, users must urgently login to their new bank account in a provided link. Needless to say, this link leads to an adversary-controlled web page, with credentials now being compromised.

“Business email is the primary attack vector adversaries employ to deliver fraud attacks. While employee education is paramount in counteracting these attempts, it must be paired with security control. To prevent threat actors from compromising user accounts and sending messages on their behalf, organizations should enforce the following:

• Enforce MFA verification on any access to an employee’s email address.
• Disable legacy email protocols that are more susceptible to compromise.
• Block access to email from risky locations”

While I hope I am wrong, I expect a wave of attacks because of the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank. Because for threat actors, this situation is too good to pass up.

This entry was posted on March 13, 2023 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.