Re: Phishing, compromised account and SPAM

[Roger A Safian <r-safian () NORTHWESTERN EDU>]

Thanks...For multi-factor we are working with Duo.  What is your OTP system going to be based on?

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of JR 
Ramirez
Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 4:06 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Phishing, compromised account and SPAM

Roger, you are correct -- it will re-write every URL.  Some users initially complained about this but we had an 
information campaign to let them know this was coming.

As great a product as Proofpoint is, its major drawback is the fact that it typically takes a couple of hours from when 
a user first clicks on a phish link to actually have Proofpoint block the phish site.

As a way to get around this protection, the phishers have become more sophisticated in their e-mails, using University 
insignia and such.  Also, we currently do not block e-mail sent on behalf of the University sourced from an external 
user (working on fixing that very soon), so some phish e-mails appear to come from internal users.

For the one or two accounts that have been compromised, the phishers would log into OWA and send internal e-mail, 
thereby passing the Proofpoint protection.  They would also log into our VPN infrastructure and send e-mail from their 
PC, also bypassing the Proofpoint protection.  This is the main reason why we are blocking Nigeria from accessing our 
OWA and VPN.

The solution we will soon implement is two-factor authentication, though it won't be long before the phishers start 
asking users to supply their OTP as well :)

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 3:53 PM, Roger A Safian <r-safian () northwestern edu<mailto:r-safian () northwestern edu>> 
wrote:
Can you comment on how the phishers have gotten around proof point?  Do you rewrite all your URL's to point to proof 
point?  (we're just starting a demo, and we're concerned that our community may balk if we rewrite URL's)

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () 
LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>] On Behalf Of JR Ramirez
Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 3:48 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Phishing, compromised account and SPAM

My organization uses the Proofpoint e-mail gateway.  All potential phish URLs are re-written and re-directed through 
Proofpoint's servers.  Valid sites would be accessible; links detected as malicious would be filtered and users would 
be prompted with a Proofpoint-branded landing page.  This typically happens within a couple of hours of detection.  
This helps to protect both internal and external users who click on phish links via their phones.  This has also cut 
down on the number of account compromises dramatically; we dropped from an average of 15 compromises per month to zero.

In the six months since we implemented this solution, the phishers have found ways around this, though it does provide 
an additional road block.  We have also taken the somewhat extreme step of blocking the whole country of Nigeria from 
accessing our OWA web server since this has been the main source of phish attacks for the past two years.

Hope this helps.

JR

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 3:20 PM, Rob Tanner <rtanner () linfield edu<mailto:rtanner () linfield edu>> wrote:
Hi,

We are seeing an increase in phishing expeditions as well as a more significant increase in those who fall for them and 
give their password away.  We've tried everything we can think of to educate faculty and staff to the fact that ITS 
never, ever asked them to revalidate their account by entering their username and password.  But it still continues to 
happen and it looks like what folks are after is an account they can send SPAM through.  If it's in the middle of a 
week-day we catch it pretty early , but evenings and especially week-ends, thousands of email messages with between 40 
and 50 recipients each are sent out before we can kill it.  So, we are constantly getting on blacklists.

I can't imagine that Linfield College is alone in this situation.  What are others doing to mitigate the consequences 
or better yet, prevent from occurring in the first place.

Thanks.


Rob Tanner
UNIX Services Manager
Linfield College, McMinnville Oregon

ITS will never ask you for your password.  Please don't share yours with anyone!