PHISHING WITH FEAR
The mission of Area 1 Security is to eliminate phishing.
Every day, we hear directly from victims of phishing attacks. They will never be the subject of news headlines or criminal investigations. They reach out from the largest corporations in the world, startups and small businesses. Some are high-net worth individuals and public figures; many are family members and friends.
Phishing campaigns succeed because cyber actors find out how to turn emotion into action. Victims never succumb due to malice or stupidity.
Our innate curiosity, our desire to trust, and our child-like interest in a good story all make us susceptible to phishing, and cyber actors know this. We humans can’t be taught to be less human. If we could, then training people to recognize and report the infinite number of ways they can be phished would have already prevented more breaches. Fortunately, our ability to think anew and act anew allows us to build technology that does what we on our own cannot1.
Cyber actors “phishing with fear” find success amidst the current dogmas of cybersecurity:
- Without any sophistication or cutting-edge computer science, cyber actors are able to use phishing successfully in 9 of 10 cybersecurity incidents.
- While mega breaches fill reports and news headlines, cyber actors continue to use phishing to earn millions of dollars without recourse or repercussions.
- Using their imagination, cyber actors evade cybersecurity aesthetes who respond to complexity.
The real challenge in cybersecurity today isn’t technology. The technology to preempt cyberattacks already exists. The challenge is organizational inertia and industry focus.