Ransomware South Africa.

Ransomware Southern Africa.

Hackers Scammers Sextortion Phishing

End Users, Informal and Small Business: Ransomware, Business Email Compromise BEC and Spoofing.

South Africa can no longer ignore it’s IT security vulnerabilities as a matter of National Interest.  

The South African news is once again filled with new Ransomware attacks, Business Email Compromise BEC and Spoofing Email hacks. South Africa’s Justice Department, Space Agency, Transnet, JBS S.A., and many other businesses are affected by the attacks conducted by CoomingProject and other threat actors.
Just like our recent #FreeZuma insurrection riots, strangely enough, rooted in the same foreign states as the hackers, we can defend the mall by doing our bit in our digital community. Corporations or Big Businesses are not the only targets as data shows End Users, Informal and Small Businesses are often the main target of Ransomware, Business Email Compromise BEC and Spoofing.

Ransomware South Africa, Email Hacks.
What precautions to take as End Users, Informal and Small Businesses.

Zero Trust Policy.
Adopt a least privilege access policy.
Keep all software up to date and patched especially on your cell phone.
Secure your internet router by changing the default admin and your Wi-Fi.
Avoid public Wi-Fi and use a VPN.
Change all passwords often.

Email Client Privacy, script, and Security changes.
Adopt a least privilege access policy.
Turn off all images and links in your email client’s security. This also stops Web Beacons.
Real all email as plain text.
Convert emails from HTML to plain text.
Turn off settings that allow downloading of external content or links.
Do not allow scripts in email settings.
Turn off the attachment preview. Only open attachments you are expecting and know the sender otherwise delete them.
Disable all macros for example Word Doc. Malware.
Avoid opening or viewing your email in a browser.
Hover your mouse over URL links before you click on them to check if the URL is legitimate.
Double-check emails that contain threats to shut your account down for example the Microsoft Invoice Phish.

Remote working creates holes in the standard security setup one has in the work environment. Workplace network Firewalls and antivirus is replaced by your home setup. Email clients that are browser-based and not systems-based are exploited.

Solution: Users to be trained in security best practices and simulations. Ransomware is a national security threat and must be legislated as such. Hackers switched switches causing a nuclear meltdown, an electric grid in the US going offline, and businesses and councils paying ransomware to restore IT Infrastructure.

Ransomware South Africa: Converting emails to plain text.

Zero Trust Policy:
Below is the same email, the first one is HTML and the second email is plain text. Converting from Html to plain text and removing images, one can see the target URL link is not Absa Bank, the target URL link does not match the business the claims to be from. Converting to plain text removes the Html masking. Removing images and converting to plain text, removes web beacons that are used to track the end user’s interaction with the email and the URL links. I recommend removing all images and viewing all emails as plain text. You can easily view the email in Html if trusted.

Plain text email with Html and images turned off.