I Bet You Never Knew THIS About Clickbait

“How To Lose 10 Pounds FAST!” “You Will Never Guess What This Star Did” “22 Of the Cutest Animals Ever…. Wait to see #17”

We have all seen titles like this.  They often populate the bottom section of relatively legitimate articles under the guise of “Related Content”.  With the effectiveness of Google tracking , there is always at least an article or two in that row that catches my eye.  The credible source placed below the title and image suggests that I would just be headed to another interesting article.  My mouse hoovers over the article….

Freeze.

Prior to working at Brite and becoming immersed in the cybersecurity world, I would have clicked on the link and not thought twice about of it.  Hopefully the article is as described.  If not, the back browser arrow would get me out of any danger – right?

Oh was I wrong.  Before you know it,  a screen could pop up saying that you have been infected with ransomware and the entire network may be crippled if the proper preventative precautions were not taken.  In many cases, “drive-by downloads” are delivering malicious code to the user device without the user actually clicking!

What can you do anything to prevent clickbait or malicious code from bringing down your network?  Luckily, you have a number of approaches which we have listed here:

• Educate your employees on proper internet behavior and the latest traps, tricks– the end user is our last line of defense where  knowledge is power
• Implement a next generation  endpoint security solution that uses artificial intelligence to prevent advanced malware
• Use next generation network technologies that prevent and inspect malicious code before it is allowed to enter your environment via web or mail
• Expand beyond URL Filtering, explore web security that rewrites URLs, redirect web traffic and controls access to sites based on an intelligent knowledge base
• Limit vulnerabilities on your host devices to prevent the opportunity for exploits
• Proactively search your environment indications of compromise and continuously interrogate your devices for compliance

Not sure what the best approach for your company is?  Brite understands that one solution doesn’t fit every organization, nor is one solution enough. Fill out the form below and someone from Brite will help you investigate the best solutions to provide the most effective defense!