Buried deep within the most recent round of COVID-19 stimulus legislation was a little provision with potentially explosive consequences: The Pentagon has six months to release a full report on what they know about the existence of what they term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) — or UFOs to the rest of us.
As details contained in the CIA archives drip out and the Pentagon deadline draws closer — and anticipation, curiosity and excitement build about the existence of extraterrestrials — experts warn that these are exactly the kind of headlines scammers are likely to turn into successful phishing scams.
Since the documents being released is legitimate news, it increases the likelihood of a successful phishing attack. Think about it, it’s pretty easy to imagine that emails from scammers will show up in your inbox with taglines like “Click here to view real CIA photos of aliens” or “enter your Social Security number here to see if your data was accessed by aliens.”
And don’t forget that your mobile phone makes you an even easier target for scammers.
Between SMS, third-party messaging apps, mobile email, social-media platforms and other apps with messaging capabilities, malicious actors have a lot of ways to get your attention. For example, over the past year phishing scams that tracked and exploited Covid-19 headlines have been particularly effective at infiltrating company networks. It’s one of the reasons why running simulated phishing campaigns on employees is so important, because it is so effective.
The Takeaway
So in short, be sure that you and your staff is up to speed on your employee security awareness training program, especially the materials related to phishing and mobile device scams. Need some help with that? Feel free to reach out. We can help.
Stay safe out there
-A
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