{"id":36025,"date":"2019-09-05T12:13:21","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=36025"},"modified":"2019-09-05T12:13:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:13:25","slug":"even-unsubscribe-emails-can-put-the-organization-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/editors-blog\/2019\/09\/even-unsubscribe-emails-can-put-the-organization-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Even \u2018Unsubscribe\u2019 Emails Can Put the Organization at Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image by Denis Bogdan<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Social engineering tactics seek to use any means that\u2019s familiar to the intended victim \u2013 and unsubscribing is perceived as being so benign, it may just be the perfect way to fool your users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I can\u2019t think of a single website I\u2019ve visited in the last year that sends me an email after I\u2019ve unsubscribed to confirm my decision, I must admit, this method of usurping the user\u2019s sense of suspicion is pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody wants to continue receiving unwanted emails. And most of us have received emails from companies we\u2019ve never heard of. And so, we unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of said emails. Imagine, then, a user\u2019s delight to receive an email allowing them to unsubscribe proactively from something they neither recognize nor want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s genius about this is it leverages our constant bombardment with emails from businesses we don\u2019t know (which means these scammers don\u2019t need to necessarily appear to be a business we are engaged with). Its message is also one that creates a positive association between the user and the email \u2013 one that will get more users to click the malicious link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the case of the example above, clicking the unsubscribe email only sends an \u201cunsubscribe\u201d email to a set of what are assumed to be scammer email addresses so they are aware your email address is a live account. But it\u2019s just as feasible to use the link to download malware, or take the user to a site laden with malicious code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Users need to be wary of any emails that are unfamiliar to them. It\u2019s better to mark them as spam or junk than it is to engage with the email in any form. These kinds of best practice responses can be taught using continual Security Awareness Training, as well as how to spot suspicious email content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog originally appeared on <\/em>KnowBe4<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social engineering tactics seek to use any means that\u2019s familiar to the intended victim \u2013 and unsubscribing is perceived as being so benign, it may just be the perfect way to fool your users. While I can\u2019t think of a single website I\u2019ve visited in the last year that sends me an email after I\u2019ve unsubscribed to confirm my decision, I must admit, this method of usurping the user\u2019s sense of suspicion is pretty good. Nobody wants to continue receiving unwanted emails. And most of us have received emails from companies we\u2019ve never heard of. And so, we unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of said emails. Imagine, then, a user\u2019s delight to receive an email allowing them to unsubscribe proactively from something they neither recognize nor want. What\u2019s genius about this is it leverages our constant bombardment with emails from businesses we don\u2019t know (which means these scammers don\u2019t need to necessarily appear to be a business we are engaged with). Its message is also one that creates a positive association between the user and the email \u2013 one that will get more users to click the malicious link. In the case of the example above, clicking the unsubscribe email only sends an \u201cunsubscribe\u201d email to a set of what are assumed to be scammer email addresses so they are aware your email address is a live account. But it\u2019s just as feasible to use the link to download malware, or take the user to a site laden with malicious code. Users need to be wary of any emails that are unfamiliar to them. It\u2019s better to mark them as spam or junk than it is to engage with the email in any form. These kinds of best practice responses can be taught using continual Security Awareness Training, as well as how to spot suspicious email content. This blog originally appeared on KnowBe4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":36027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1650,82,88,3371,1638],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36029,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36025\/revisions\/36029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}