New Tool Against Phishing Attacks

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Protecting against phishing attacks, in which malicious actors attempt to gain access to a user’s credentials (and then to systems and networks) through social engineering, is still critical for the government. According to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about 90 percent of the data exfiltrations that have hit the federal government and private sector in the last eight or nine years were the result of spear-phishing campaigns that targeted unsuspecting employees. Now, US federal agencies have another tool to fight back against the attacks.

Security firm Lookout has added new anti-phishing and content protection capabilities to its Mobile Endpoint Security platform, which received funding from DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate. The enhanced platform is now available for iOS and Android operating systems.

As DHS S&T statement said, the “advancements in mobile threat defense will protect sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information, on mobile devices and enterprise networks and greatly increase the security of the federal government’s mobile systems for mission-critical activities.”

In October 2017, DHS mandated that federal agencies use the Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance protocol DMARC. This enables email servers to determine whether an email is actually from the sender, then delete forged emails or mark them as spam. However, many agencies are not yet using the protocol or don’t have it configured correctly.

According to fedtechmagazine.com, the updated platform from Lookout is one more arrow in agencies’ quivers to fight phishing. DHS notes that the rapid growth of mobile device and app use and the constantly expanding mobile ecosystem mean that agencies must continuously validate mobile security and enhance their threat protection.

The new capabilities are designed to block mobile phishing attacks that aim to steal user credentials or deliver malware. The system sends real-time alerts to users when it detects a harmful connection, which protects users (and networks) from malicious apps, websites with known vulnerabilities and other risky content, DHS says.