Identify Spear Phishing Attacks with Security Threat Prevention Tool

Prevent spear phishing by better monitoring user accounts, logs, and system changes

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Keep sensitive data secure from spear phishing attacks

With File Integrity Monitoring (FIM), admins can detect changes to files, folders, and registry settings. When any change appears suspicious, alerts are automatically sent to the necessary IT team member. Additionally, if you need to monitor file changes to stay compliant with PCI DSS, SOX, or HIPAA standards, or if you just want to help ensure the security of your IT environment, SolarWinds^® Security Event Manager (SEM) is built to help admins protect confidential files. Additionally, if something is compromised, you can automate how SEM responds by setting custom rules to monitor event traffic and improve security.

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Secure privileged accounts for spear phishing protection

Many spear phishing attacks are designed to compromise login credentials, especially for privileged accounts that have access to sensitive information. That is why it is important to invest in tools that offer admins increased visibility into account activity. Spear phishing prevention tools allow admins to set and configure groups, then proactively monitor changes in usage patterns associated with privileged accounts. SolarWinds Security Event Manager is designed to recognize any noticeable shift in an account’s usage pattern and will send an alert to the necessary admin. SEM also offers spear phishing protection in real time, so any suspicious activity or potential abuse related to permissions changes can be addressed by IT without delay.

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Get alerts for suspicious spear phishing network activity

Once an attacker breaches a firewall, they often attempt to map the network in search of additional vulnerabilities. Once they find one, they will install malware. Whether intentional or as an unintentional side effect, these actions can be disruptive and cause systems to lose communication ability or fail.

SolarWinds Security Event Manager is built to help identify a phishing attack by correlating events within log files from a wide range of inputs, including email, intrusion software, file transfers, and many other network elements and processes. SEM can receive events sent by installed SEM Agents, syslog, and SNMP.

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Get More on Spear Phishing

Do you find yourself asking…

What is spear phishing?
How can you identify a spear phishing attack?
How does spear phishing software work?
Why is spear phishing prevention important?
How does spear phishing prevention work in SEM?
What other security features does SEM have?
Related Features and Tools

Spear phishing is the act of sending emails to specific targets while pretending to be a trusted sender. The aim of these attacks is to either infect a victim’s devices with malware or to convince the victim to willingly offer their information or money. Spear phishing is frustrating because no matter how secure your network, applications, and endpoints are, it’s all too easy for humans to be exploited via social engineering tactics.

While regular phishing campaigns aim to damage or steal data from a large number of relatively low-value targets, spear phishing attacks are aimed at specific targets. As such, they will use specific language in their emails or texts to trick the intended victim. This requires the attacker to thoroughly research their target before carrying out an attack, so they can make their emails seem completely legitimate to their victims.

There are different kinds of spear phishing attacks, including whaling attacks or smart phishing. A whale attack (also known as whale phishing) is the act of targeting high-profile employees so attackers can steal the most valuable information from a company. Since CEOs and COOs are in positions of power at their organizations, they typically have access to more sensitive data, and as such, attackers will target these “whales” over the smaller “fish” at a company. Smart phishing, on the other hand, is driven by AI-powered malware that deploys untraceable malicious applications, often via benign data payloads. With the use of AI, attackers can more easily conceal these attacks and make it almost impossible to reverse-engineer their threats.

Both attacks are prime examples of spear phishing, since each generally requires more time and effort on the part of the attacker than ordinary phishing attacks.

The targeted nature of spear phishing threats can make it difficult to identify an attack, but there are ways to identify malicious emails. While the best technique is to use software that protects against and monitors for spear phishing attacks, individuals can also take phishing attack prevention steps when using email in the workplace.

The first step is to be alert when you receive an email asking you to send sensitive information that is not usually shared over email. This is the first sign that you might be targeted by a spear phishing attack. When this happens, you must check both the email address itself as well as the sender’s name. Attackers will create fraudulent sender names to pose as someone you recognize. Although this might make the sender seem legitimate, mimicking the email address is more difficult. As such, always verify the email address itself—and not just the name of the sender—and make sure the email matches your record of correspondence.

If an attacker manages to mimic both the name of the sender and their email address, it’s important to check the email format. If the format of the suspected phishing email does not match with any of the previous emails from that sender, users must take further measures to confirm the legitimacy of the email.

Always be cautious with links sent to you in emails and verify them whenever possible. Attackers want to trick you into clicking a link that they’ve shared via email. Even in scenarios when you are confident the email address and the sender name are legitimate, you can never be too careful: make sure the link embedded in the hypertext does not lead to a fraudulent website. To identify if the link is legit or not, simply hover over it to see the complete address. If the web address or the link path seems suspicious, don’t click on it. Just one click can compromise your web browser, install malware in your system, and even lead to an attacker gaining full control of your system and all its stored information. In cases when the address looks familiar, make sure the page you are redirected to does not ask for sensitive information like passwords or other login credentials. This might be a sign that an attacker created a well-developed fraudulent webpage.

Spear phishing is the act of sending emails to specific targets while pretending to be a trusted sender. The aim of these attacks is to either infect a victim’s devices with malware or to convince the victim to willingly offer their information or money. Spear phishing is frustrating because no matter how secure your network, applications, and endpoints are, it’s all too easy for humans to be exploited via social engineering tactics.
While regular phishing campaigns aim to damage or steal data from a large number of relatively low-value targets, spear phishing attacks are aimed at specific targets. As such, they will use specific language in their emails or texts to trick the intended victim. This requires the attacker to thoroughly research their target before carrying out an attack, so they can make their emails seem completely legitimate to their victims.
There are different kinds of spear phishing attacks, including whaling attacks or smart phishing. A whale attack (also known as whale phishing) is the act of targeting high-profile employees so attackers can steal the most valuable information from a company. Since CEOs and COOs are in positions of power at their organizations, they typically have access to more sensitive data, and as such, attackers will target these “whales” over the smaller “fish” at a company. Smart phishing, on the other hand, is driven by AI-powered malware that deploys untraceable malicious applications, often via benign data payloads. With the use of AI, attackers can more easily conceal these attacks and make it almost impossible to reverse-engineer their threats.
Both attacks are prime examples of spear phishing, since each generally requires more time and effort on the part of the attacker than ordinary phishing attacks.
Other SolarWinds Tools to Help Prevent Data Breaches:
SolarWinds Patch Manager
SolarWinds Access Right Manager
SolarWinds Identity Monitor
Related Features:
Botnet Detection
SQL Injection
Ransomware Detection
Advanced Persistent Threat Defense
Cross Site Scripting Detection
DDoS detection
Threat Management
Threat Prevention
Threat Detection
Intrusion Detection
Insider Threat Management

Detect and respond to spear phishing security threats

Security Event Manager

Monitor files, folders, and registry settings to protect data from phishing attacks.
Gain increased visibility into account activity to detect signs of suspicious events.
Analyze event logs across a network to identify anomalies that may be signs of a breach.

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