One variation of a method includes: intercepting an inbound email received from a sender at an inbound email address and addressed to a recipient within an organization; accessing a keyword list comprising a set of keywords associated with inauthentic email attempts; and, in response to identifying a first word, in a set of words contained in the inbound email, in the set of keywords, scanning the first inbound email for presence of external content linked to the first inbound email. In response to detecting a link to an external document within the first inbound email, the method further includes: accessing a whitelist comprising a set of verified email addresses associated with authentic email attempts within the organization; and, in response to the set of verified email addresses omitting the inbound email address, withholding transmission of the inbound email to the target recipient and flagging the inbound email for authentication.

A method and apparatus for providing IP address filtering. The method identifies one or more suspicious Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and resolves the one or more suspicious URLs to one or more suspicious IP addresses. A suspicious IP address list is created containing the one or more suspicious IP addresses. The suspicious IP address list may be used to facilitate a security response to filter one or more of the IP addresses in the suspicious IP address list.

A computing device comprising a secure browser extension for a web browser monitors for satisfaction of one or more operating conditions to identify whether one or more unauthorized applications are intercepting web browser communications. Based on satisfaction of at least one operating condition, the secure browser extension of the computing device sends an HTTPS request to a known service via the web browser. The secure browser extension receives an HTTPS response to the HTTPS request via the web browser. The secure browser extension determines whether the certificate included in the HTTPS response is trusted by the secure browser extension. Based on determining the certificate is not trusted, the secure browser extension terminates the web browser session and generates a notification for display at the computing device that indicates web browser communications are compromised.

An author of a malicious websites campaign (scam or phishing) likely uses a legitimate third-party service to facilitate the malicious campaign. An example includes legitimate CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) services to conceal the malicious campaign from automated security scanners. A security service/platform can employ a detection pipeline that leverages use of CAPTCHA keys across websites of a malicious websites campaign. Websites that use CAPTCHA keys found in known malicious websites can at least be identified as suspect and communicated to firewalls.

A DNS server receives from a receiving email system, a DNS query for an email domain stored at the DNS server, the DNS query including identifying information of a sender of an email. The DNS server extracts the identifying information of the email sender from the DNS query and identifies one of a plurality of delivering organizations from the information. The DNS server determines whether the identified delivering organization is authorized to deliver email on behalf of the email domain. In response to determining that the identified delivering organization is authorized to deliver email on behalf of the email domain, the DNS server generates a target validation record based on the identity of the authorized delivering organization and the email domain, the target validation record including one or more rules indicating to the receiving email system whether the delivering organization is an authorized sender of email for the email domain.

Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.

A collection apparatus that collects a URL of a Web page that leads to user operation and includes a search query generation unit that generates a search query by combining a digital content name and an associated keyword of the digital content. There is a fitness prediction unit that predicts a degree to which a Web page that leads to user operation is output as a search result when a search is performed by using the generated search query, a determination unit that searches for a Web page by using a search query in a search order that is based on the predicted degree, and determines analysis priority of a URL of a Web page on the basis of the degree and search result information. Further, there is a communication unit that outputs the URL of the retrieved Web page and the analysis priority of the URL.

Systems, methods, and media are used to identify phishing attacks. A notification of a phishing attempt with a parameter associated with a recipient of the phishing attempt is received at a security management node. In response, an indication of the phishing attempt is presented in a phishing attempt search interface. The phishing attempt search interface may be used to search for additional recipients, identify which recipients have been successfully targeted, and provide a summary of the recipients. Using this information, appropriate security measures in response to the phishing attempt for the recipients may be performed.

Techniques are disclosed relating to detecting and prevent phishing attacks (such as man-in-the-middle attacks) related to multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA) processes. A system is described that makes a determination of whether to permit or deny a subsequent authentication step (e.g., a 2FA authentication step) based on a level of trust determined between the computing device making the initial authentication request to a service computer system and the computing device being asked to implement the subsequent authentication step (such as a mobile device). The computing device associated with the subsequent authentication step assesses the trust between the devices and makes the determination of whether to permit or deny the subsequent authentication step. The present techniques enhance computer system security against phishing attacks while maintaining a satisfying user experience for legitimate users.

A detection device monitors a communication event including communication by humans when a legitimate user accesses sensitive data for each legitimate user. The detection device builds a profile of the user indicating normal behavior when the user accesses the sensitive data by performing machine learning on a result of the monitoring. After that, the detection device acquires a communication event when a user to be authenticated accesses sensitive data. The detection device determines whether behavior of the user to be authenticated indicated in the acquired communication event corresponds to normal behavior when the user accesses the sensitive data indicated in a profile of the user, and outputs a result of the determination.