Weekly Tip! EvilProxy and URLs
About a week ago, researchers uncovered a new "phishing-for-hire" tool called EvilProxy. The tool sends standard phishing emails to recipients, but it implements some advanced hacking techniques to dramatically increase the odds of taking over your account - from GMail/Office 365 to GitHub, Amazon, and anything else that offers value to an attacker.
There is no known solution to 100% prevent this attack.
So it's very important this month that we all step back, slow down, and pay very close attention to what we do in email. EvilProxy works by sending you a phishing email that looks legit, but has spoofed and harmful links. For instance:
- Instead of support.google.com, the link may send you to support-google.com (very subtle difference)
- Instead of microsoft.com, the link may send you to micros0ft.com (or another URL where a number is substituted for a letter).
- The link may actually send you to an "IP address," which is a series of numbers that identifies a server on the Internet. For instance, 20.81.111.85
Your safest bet is, no matter what the email is or what the subject is, to manually navigate to your account on whatever service is linked to in the email. For instance if you recieve an email with a login link for a banking account at Wells Fargo, don't click the link in email. Instead, open a new browser tab and manually enter Wells Fargo's web address.
Another tip: if you receive an email, click a link, and are prompted to enter credentials, don't. If you receive an email, click a link, enter your credentials and are prompted to provide your multi-factor authentication code, don't. As mentioned above, in a new browser tab navigate to the service and log in manualy.
Another tip: if you receive an email, click a link, and are prompted to enter credentials, don't. If you receive an email, click a link, enter your credentials and are prompted to provide your multi-factor authentication code, don't. As mentioned above, in a new browser tab navigate to the service and log in manualy.
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