Look Before You Click! Your Clients May Not
With all the news around scam links via emails and social media posts, you’d think clicking bad links would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the cybercriminals are only getting sneakier, and have upped their scamming game when it comes to impersonating legitimate links and sites. In fact, according to our findings in the Webroot 2015 Threat Brief, less than 55% of all URLs are trustworthy.
That means nearly half the URLs out there are risky.
Where does this data come from? We classify and monitor the reputations of over 20 billion URLs across 83-plus categories, and make that intelligence available through the Webroot BrightCloud services, as well as Webroot SecureAnywhere Business solutions.
Now, keep in mind that not all risky URLs are created equal. Even with our comprehensive analysis, some URLs are still classified as a Moderate Risk because there isn’t enough data to determine the site’s true intent, malicious or not. Of course, URLs in malicious categories—such as spam URLs, malware sites, phishing, proxy avoidance and anonymizers, spyware/adware and botnets—pose the most risk. When excluding those categories, the greatest percentage of Suspicious to High-Risk URLs are Business and Economy, Society, Shopping, Travel, and Health and Medicine. You’d think those would be pretty straightforward and harmless, right? The scammers are counting on that. Even though the technical majority of the Web is Trustworthy or Low Risk, there are still hundreds of millions of sites that organizations need to account for in their defenses, including categories one wouldn’t ordinarily expect.
The modern online landscape offers great advantages to modern organizations, but also brings significant risks. To ensure the success of a business, admins need to implement the right mix of security checks and balances on Internet use. Therein lies the challenge: How can MSPs help their clients achieve the necessary protection without impeding the everyday usage needs of their end users?
By providing cloud-level protection, a secure Web gateway can intercept malware before it reaches the network or endpoint devices, no matter how or where users connect. Historically, such gateways have required cumbersome consoles and expensive on-premise hardware, but modern solutions have made those headaches a thing of the past. With the right solution, admins can manage Internet usage, create appropriate group and user policies, and ensure regulatory compliance in just a few clicks–freeing them up to tackle more pressing tasks. If you haven’t yet considered a secure Web gateway, now is the time.
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