Sophos has introduced its Sophos Phish Threat, an advanced security testing and training platform designed to reduce risk from IT’s attack surface, the end-user.
The simulator is fully integrated with the Sophos’ cloud-based security management platform, Sophos Central, and with management and automated campaign analysis, Phish Threat dramatically reduces the time and resources required to affect real change in employee behaviour when faced with sophisticated and rapidly evolving cybercrime techniques.
Sophos Phish Threat enables IT managers to create authentic phishing simulation and training sessions, and initiates course corrections for their employees. This helps end-users better recognise what a phishing attack looks like and learn from their mistakes should they get lured into taking the bait.
As attacks change with current events, changing seasons and attacker methodologies, Sophos Phish Threat constantly updates its testing framework to reflect real-world threats. IT managers can craft bespoke simulation campaigns for office locations worldwide, just as many cybercriminals are now designing threats tailored by geography.
Bill Lucchini, senior vice president and general manager for the Sophos Cloud Security Group, said: “Phishing has evolved in lockstep with the ‘Malware-as-a-Service’ phenomenon. For years, criminals have disguised attacks in email and today SophosLabs sees phishing emails as a primary delivery method for ransomware payloads. Preventing users from succumbing to phishing attacks can seem like an uphill battle.
“However, with Sophos Phish Threat, IT managers now have sophisticated, integrated threat intelligence that combines the strength of Sophos security technologies with a product that tests, trains and analyses human vulnerabilities. This creates a very powerful solution for businesses struggling to keep ahead of organised cybercrime and unwary end-users.”
Sophos acquired the Phish Threat technology in late 2016 from penetration test and risk assessment consultancy Silent Break Security and has since integrated the product into the Sophos Central platform.
“I noticed a discrepancy between the way cyber-attacks were being conducted in the wild and what the private sector was calling a ‘penetration test,'” commented Brady Bloxham, founder and former CEO of Silent Break Security. “We built Phish Threat to replicate the mindset of a real attacker, using the complicated methods and techniques in use today. This means assessments are modelled after potential attacks that organisations may face from real hackers. We also wanted to make it more transparent and easier for IT to collate and analyse results – something we hadn’t found in other tools.”
