Cyber for Plan Sponsors

Phishing Attacks More Successful on Mobile

07.02.2019

Viewing an entire email in a standard window on a desktop can make it fairly easy to figure out if an email you received is legitimate. You can easily see the sender address, all signatures and data in the email and whether any other distinguishing features look legitimate. It is easy to catch any inconsistencies. But on mobile browser, with everything compressed and many email visual features are de-emphasized or flat out removed, it can be harder to distinguish real from phishing emails. That iss why phishing and social engineering cyber attacks are more dangerous on mobile.

Navigation between pages to check legitimacy can be difficult on your cell phone while even obvious items on desktop like improper SSL certificates are hard to see on mobile. The realities of a smaller screen with fewer multi-tasking options make it difficult to correctly evaluate site and email legitimacy.

That makes it easier for cyber attackers’ phishing emails to work successfully on mobile. All of these factors combine to make it more likely that you will click a link or download an attachment in one of their spoofed emails, allowing them to gain access to your business or company’s system and exposure your stored sensitive data.

These attacks can be almost impossible to effectively stop due to the restrictions involved in mobile computing. Your best bet is to contain and manage a breach should it occur to prevent it from running out of control.

How can you best manage and contain cyber attacks? Cyber liability insurance!

Colonial Surety offers an included cyber liability insurance endorsement for our ERISA fidelity bond packages with fiduciary liability insurance to best protect your plan against a cyber attack.

Colonial’s cyber insurance provides a services-based solution to help plan sponsors manage data breaches successfully. These services include a dedicated team of cyber breach professionals who assist plan sponsors at every stage of incident investigation and breach response. These professionals coordinate the carefully vetted forensics experts and specialized lawyers to help plan sponsors establish what’s been compromised; assess plan sponsor responsibility; and, notify those individuals affected. In addition, these services will also coordinate credit or identity monitoring, and PR advice to help the plan sponsor safeguard its reputation. Of course, Colonial’s cyber insurance also indemnifies and defends plan sponsors from covered lawsuits or regulatory actions, the risk of which may be reduced by a well-coordinated breach response, but can never be completely eliminated.