We all know Social Engineering is the most commonly used way to spread malware. There seems to be a device that can help with that, as far as e-mails go. Its not a cheap form of protection though.
We all know that Social Engineering is the easiest way to spread malware. As P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and in the age of the Internet, it is even easier to get to those suckers. Pyramid Schemes, Malware, Phishing Attacks, all heavily rely on the mark being trusting. Anti-Malware, Firewalls, and security devices have always had a problem with this angle of attack.
Now a company called Cyveillance is touting a new appliance to help mitigate the Social Engineering front. Two problems though. First, like all first generation, innovative ideas, the cost is more than most people make in a year. Over $100,000 for the device alone, not including all the scan types, and extra protection licenses added on.
Second, it only scans e-mail. This is nice for those instances where it is e-mail that has a bad link, but a lot of the malware is coming through hijacked ads on websites. This device doesn’t take any of that into account.
More information is available here and here. Overall the idea of a device like this, or algorithms and heuristics that can defend on this front, and be reliable, is where we need to focus our defenses on. Hopefully, someone can go the next step on this. After all, we are only as secure as the weakest link in the chain.