Educause Security Discussion: Re: Mitigating Phishing Attacks

["Bateman, Darrell" <darrell.bateman () TTU EDU>]

We use similar procedures in our Service Desk as some of the others here who have commented. Additionally, we do the 
following:



1.       Insert a warning message in red at the top of incoming emails that have certain keywords used to collect login 
credentials. Users get an NDR if they try to reply to an email that has the warning message inserted, unless they first 
remove the warning text. This used to be fairly effective, but now spammers use URL’s and entice users to click on 
them, rendering this control less effective.

2.       We use outbound spam filtering to block much of the spam that results from compromised accounts.

3.       We have a procedure for repeat “victims” of phishing attacks.



We have considered requiring 2nd factor authentication for OWA, required when a user logs in from a new computer and/or 
IP address. The 2nd factor would be the user’s secret question or a code sent to the user’s mobile phone. This would be 
a large undertaking to implement, but it would have other security benefits. I welcome any comments from this group on 
the effectiveness of this proposed strategy.



Also, if anyone out there has a network-based DLP solution in place, does it effectively detect and block entry of 
local user credentials to a foreign host?



--------------------------------------

Darrell Bateman

Assistant Vice President for IT and ISO

Office of the Chief Information Officer

Information Technology Division

Texas Tech University



From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of 
Christopher Jones
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 2:04 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: [SECURITY] Mitigating Phishing Attacks



  _____



We have experienced a number of targeted phishing attacks recently.  Because the most recent phish led its victims to 
provide their network credentials via a realistic looking OWA logon page, we took the following steps to deal with some 
resultant compromised accounts:



·         immediately reset the passwords for the affected accounts,

·         restarted, the IIS service to stop any active webmail sessions

·         alerted the user community





It got me to wondering how other institutions deal with similar situations where user accounts have been compromised.  
If anyone would care to share, I would be interested how you have handled similar situations. It would be useful to 
know your top 3 strategies for preventing and mitigating such occurrences.  Thanks.





Christopher Jones

IT Security Analyst

University of the Fraser Valley

Christopher.Jones () ufv ca<mailto:Christopher.Jones () ufv ca>