07 May Polymorphic Phishing Enters as a New Threat

This isn’t your everyday, ordinary phishing. This is advanced polymorphic phishing.

The nemesis of internet security remains social engineering. Phishing has long been the foe of even the most resilient cybersecurity measures, preying on human error to achieve success. So common is the threat of phishing, it’s referred to as social engineering.

Documents and tips exist to help counteract the dangers of phishing schemes. But even with the best intent and knowledge, phishing remains one of the most successful attack methods, typically as a precursor to compromised domains, malware, and ransomware injections. Unfortunately, with the rise of AI prompts and advancements in machine learning, phishing has adopted a wholly new form.

Polymorphic Phishing

Polymorphic phishing presents new, unprecedented dangers by delivering emails that adapt, randomize, and evade traditional domain defense methods. This is a nightmare scenario for even the most comprehensive cybersecurity measures.

Where with traditional phishing methods and emails, domains can check for red-flags and designate a message as dangerous. However, polymorphic phishing is dynamic and capable of making various modifications to its contents to avoid standard detection. Unique emails can be created for every target, eliminating pattern recognition by security tools.

Another nefarious element is the deeply personal element of polymorphic phishing. As is, social engineering is based on collected data from targets. This can be harvested from publicly available sources, like social media, business profiles, and even personal websites. With machine-learning assistance, threat actors are capable of collecting massive swaths of information on a larger scale, which is then concentrated into dynamic polymorphic phishing messages.

Adding to the lethal nature of a polymorphic phishing attack is its ability to adapt in real time based on user preferences, responses, and collected data. The collected behaviors of a target feed into a comprehensive malicious email, making a uniquely dangerous message to achieve success.

In essence, the personalized nature of a polymorphic attack is what creates its unique and deadly edge.

Protecting Against Polymorphic Phishing

With the presence of such dangerous, adaptive phishing schemes, how can we protect ourselves?

Some of the security fundamentals remain the same. The heart of phishing relies on deception, coercion, and fooling the recipient. While it’s true polymorphic emails possess new, dangerous, and dynamic content, they are still at their core phishing. Phishing is based on deception, countered by extra scrutiny, caution, and common-sense solutions.

Other core fundamentals of cybersecurity are also helpful for countering polymorphic phishing emails.

Updating Software

All anti-malware software, user applications, and company (or personal) tools should always be updated to their latest version. Exploitable resources are primarily what hackers look for after implementing a successful phishing attack.

Train and Simulate

Where possible, training staff on polymorphic phishing attacks – or social engineering in general – can better prepare them to identify traits associated with phishing messages. Phishing messages seek out compromising information, like administrator privileges or credentials. Therefore, even a polymorphic phishing attack can possess traits attempting to acquire this information.

Conducting simulations that mimic phishing or polymorphic attacks can help staff identify malicious messages.

Manifest Strong Security Culture

Mindset is everything when it comes to cybersecurity. Whether small or large-scale, how we approach habits when engaging with data, the internet, and personal information defines our level of safety. It does not matter if you invest in the most complex and expensive cybersecurity suites. If your company is badgered by unsafe security habits, it can be undone in moments.

Security culture comes down to every individual, and while it’s a gradual, challenging process, implementing changes slowly helps in the long term. For example, a very simple practice is to implement “verify then trust,” where a staff member verifies the validity of a message, email, or piece of content before accessing it.

Use Third-Party Resources

Polymorphic phishing, as with social engineering, is an overwhelming new concept, and not all companies are capable of preparing for it. In these circumstances, it’s wise to seek out additional help from a third party. Managed service providers are one such resource, capable of drawing on robust expertise to help combat the latest cybersecurity and IT problems.

For additional help and information, you can contact Bytagig today.