According to a recent Symantec blog, attackers are targeting SMBs at a
greater rate than larger companies of more than 500 people. Some other
interesting facts from Symantec’s cloud research:
"The percentage of employees who received a targeted Trojan during 2010
was much higher for the SMB sector than for large companies. One small
business, in particular, had targeted Trojans sent to all 488 of their
employees. SMB industry sectors such as mineral/fuel, non-profit, engineering, marketing
and recreation received the most attacks compared with other industry sectors,
showing that they are at higher risk. They also found that attackers target
intellectual property and market-leading research - focusing their efforts on
education and market research organizations, in particular."
Commtouch, a provider of antivirus technology to industry, is indicating in its
blog that targeted emails with malicious attachments have increased
dramatically since August to two billion or more per day. These are not emails
with links to bogus or malicious websites, but attachments that may look like
normal document files typical in business. These attacks are not spam but
something far more sinister.
These targeted attacks are aimed at specific individuals in specific
organizations, contain embedded malware, and are designed largely to capture
credentials and gain access to valuable data. Much of this targeted email with
malicious attachments bypasses antivirus and gateway protections. It lands
squarely in a target’s inbox as legitimate email. The embedded malware is
designed to be unique and unknown to anti-virus and anti-malware.
If you find yourself reading an email with an attachment that seems to be
legitimate, think twice, it may not be. A targeted email attack often uses
information about you to gain your trust. It will seem like a normal email.
So what do you do? Symantec’s blogger suggests that you "use common
sense" and "be smart." Your business associates send you data
files that you open all of the time. The attacker will pose as one of them, but
will bury a program inside. You can’t possibly know for sure, regardless of how
much common sense you apply.
The new SavantEnforcer client will block malicious
attachments automatically because it denies by default any unknown executable.
It’s a simple and powerful antidote for the avalanche of targeted malware and
it can be installed on a computer for about a dollar per month. Should you use
common sense, good security practices and keep your software protection up to
date? Of course you should. But you may also want to consider a solution that
gives you the confidence to open an attachment without the risk of compromise.
About Savant Protection:
Savant Protection is a leading privately held vendor of innovative application
whitelisting solutions that fill major gaps in the functionality of other
endpoint security and management products and provide significant operational
and financial benefits to customers. The company’s solutions are easy to integrate
with existing systems, are not dependent on a central whitelist database, and
can stop zero-day attacks and address the increasing inability of existing
endpoint solutions, such as signature-based anti-virus products, to effectively
protect against the growing proliferation of sophisticated, targeted malware. Savant
Protection’s customers are able to lower costs and increase their
organization’s productivity by minimizing endpoint incidents that require
remediation and cause unproductive downtime for users. Savant Protection is
headquartered in Hudson, New Hampshire, USA.
Contact:
Victor Cruz, Principal
MediaPR.net
Hudson, NH 03051- USA
(978) 594-4134
