We all know that procurement is a tedious and expensive process. Let’s take a look at a couple of those perceived benefits: streamlined procurement and the “one throat to choke” single vendor concept. Some of the benefits of bundling are beyond the product themselves. But only if all of the products and services included by the vendor are best-in-class (equivalent to best-of-breed), and you are getting a significant discount on everything you need. Seriously, a good bundle can be a great thing.
Sounds like a great deal and sometimes it is, particularly when the fries are actually spicy curly fries (I’m looking at you, Jack in the Box).īut what if those fries are not so great? Have you ever had bad fries that just make you really want the good ones? Without doing some homework, your great cybersecurity bundle may come with some soggy fries. It is a sales tactic that large IT and cybersecurity vendors use to grow their “footprint” within a customer account.Įssentially, it works like a value meal at your favorite fast food joint: Why have just a burger and drink when you can have fries too for just a little bit more? Let’s first start by having a closer look at bundling. The concept of “bundling” has become very popular among large IT vendors over the past decade as it promises a number of benefits.īut, does the bundle really deliver everything promised? Well, as usual, it depends. (And seriously, people–control yourselves online.) New-school security awareness training can give your employees a healthy sense of suspicion so they can avoid falling for phishing attacks. User data gleaned in this way will be transmitted to cybercriminals, who will use it for various malicious purposes, such as money withdrawal, blackmailing, or committing further frauds.” It is likely a fake site designed to hook users into providing payment information.
There, a further link points to hungrygrizzlycom, which has the appearance of a dating site. “Clicking on ( would bring you to a site with photos. “The link at the top of this email points to a destination page which is classified as Malicious by Google Safe Browsing,” the researchers write. GreatHorn shares a representative example in which a phishing email claimed to come from a woman staying in the same hotel as the recipient. Individuals who clicked on links to compromising material could be targeted in the second attack to extort the individual.” In these attacks, the cybercriminal leverages the information they gleaned in order to set up a second stage. Once a user clicks on a link in the email, their email address is automatically passed to the linked site. The same technology enables legitimate email senders to auto-populate an unsubscribe field with a user email address.
In these attacks, cybercriminals are tracking the identity of victims who click on their sites by using a technique called an email pass-through. “Because of the x-rated content, attackers set up victims with compromising material to be used for blackmail. “Attackers use phishing attacks as an initial vector to gather information about the target,” GreatHorn says. The researchers note that in addition to stealing information, the attackers can also return to blackmail victims. “These attacks reach across a broad spectrum of industries and appear to target based on male-sounding usernames in company email addresses.” “Between May 2020 and April 2021, the number of such attacks increased 974%,” the researchers write. The researchers explain that these emails are effective at getting people to click, and will also make victims reluctant to report the attack once they realize they’ve been scammed. Phishing lures with X-rated themes have spiked over the past year, according to researchers at GreatHorn.