Stick a fork in cyber fraud

Securicom’s Managing Director Richard Broeke

---

South Africa-based managed IT security services company Securicom says businesses can stick a fork in cyber fraud and keep their money. The company has introduced a unique solution for the South African market, ProtectU, which provides advanced e-mail security protection against spam, malware and phishing. Securicom is so confident in the effectiveness that it is including compensation of up to R100 000 per incident to subscribers who lose money as a result of a fraudulent funds transfer.

“Cyber-related fraud continues to escalate, leaving companies out of pocket at a time when most cannot tolerate the costs. In many cases, cyber fraud can be linked to poor security awareness and outdated protection tools, specifically relating to e-mail, which is still the most common vector of attack in use today by cyber criminals.

“If you want a real stab at stopping cyber fraud, you cannot divorce robust e-mail security, advanced threat protection and user education from each other. You have to address all three,” says Securicom’s Managing Director Richard Broeke.

Doing all three, ProtectU combines Securicom’s industry-leading management solution e-Purifier, including Advanced Threat Protection and its uSecure end-user awareness training and phishing simulation platform.

Broeke says traditional anti-virus and anti-spam no longer cut it. Today’s hackers are using proxy pools, modem pools and open relays to send phishing mails and to mask the identity of the true sender. These new forms of spam cannot be stopped by just adding a static blacklisting rule. Anti-spam engines now rely on artificial intelligence (AI), global detection sensors and networks to adjust to the way spam is being sent today. Outdated, old generation anti-spam tools are not equipped with these capabilities.

Attacks happen where there is a lack of security on the endpoint such as a server, workstation or laptop. Missing patches, OS vulnerabilities, access controls and applications with missing security features are exploited and used to gain sensitive information. What this means is that the majority of companies using traditional e-mail security tools are vulnerable.

Furthermore, cyber criminals use highly targeted spear-phishing attacks or social engineering to gain access to a network. The easiest and most common form in delivering the initial package is via e-mail.

“Almost all of us have heard a story of someone who has been tricked into paying money over to someone they shouldn’t have or someone who has given away their passwords, personal information or banking details to someone they shouldn’t have, and lost money because of it. Social engineering and business e-mail compromise is very real and people are more likely to be conned if they are not aware,” says Broeke.

With ProtectU, companies get best-of-breed anti-spam tools with IP reputation lookup; URL reputation filtering; URL redirection; anti-virus; anti-malware, impersonation protection, advanced threat protection to stop malicious code attacks and ransomware; as well as the intelligent uSecure training platform to make cyber security culture in a pain-free, measurable and cost-effective way. With uSecure, cyber attacks can be simulated regularly to help identify most at-risk users and learn how susceptible they are to ultra-targeted spear-phishing campaigns and business e-mail compromise attacks.

“This solution delivers comprehensive protection against e-mail based threats but there is always a human factor. In the unfortunate event of a loss of funds due to the fraudulent conduct of a third party, we will put up to R100 000 back into the affected client’s hands. We believe this offers additional peace of mind,” he concludes.

Follow Securicom on Facebook: Facebook and LinkedIn