National Portrait Gallery hit by 350,000 email attacks in three months

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery was targeted by 347,602 emails containing spam, phishing and malware attacks in the last quarter of 2019, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have been revealed.

According to data collected by think tank Parliament Street, over half of the emails, 194,620 were identified as directory harvest attacks (DHA), used to harvest legitimate email addresses belonging to gallery staff and associates Used to be done.

The gallery also flagged 61,710 emails from dispatchers sent as “Threat Intelligence Blacklists”. Another 85,793 emails were intercepted because they were believed to contain spam content – anything from unsolicited marketing to serious phishing and malware. According to statistics, 418 of the emails contained some type of virus.

“These figures are designed to deceive staff designed to hand over a worrying picture of the amount of malicious email attacks to confidential data such as passwords and log-in credentials,” said Andy Heather, VP of the security firm.

“The National Portrait Gallery is an incredibly popular destination for tourists, attracting millions of visitors and members every year, which unfortunately makes it a top target for hackers and cybercriminals, who are legitimate, often stolen , Want to use credentials to gain fear of identity. ”

Stolen employee credentials are a global problem for all businesses. Last year, data from Google’s password checkup report suggested that 1.5% of all sign-in attempts were being attempted using compromised details during a data breach.

“Addressing this threat means ensuring a zero-trust approach to employee communications, ensuring that suspicious emails are spotty and thoroughly investigated so that managers can be sure that all employees are who they are Says, “Heather said.

In 2017, London art dealers were forced out of hundreds of thousands of pounds after hackers successfully hacked the company’s email accounts to monitor correspondence between customers. The incident led to new cyber security guidance issued by the Society of London Art Dealers, as well as tips to avoid email fraud.

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