Protection from ‘Blended Threat email attacks’
We’ll be phasing in a system to help protect our information
Blended Threat email messages are usually designed so they appear to be from a trusted
sender, and can be targeted to a specific individual. They contain links to a website hosting
malicious code, or attempting to entice the user into providing personal information such as
payment details.
NHS Wales have introduced a solution from “Trustwave”, which checks hyperlinks before
opening.
The checking includes a number of validation methods, such as real-time behavioural
analysis, content inspection as well as information from a number of industry standard
sources, to identify and block sites that serve suspicious or malicious code. Because
validation is performed in real time by a cloud service when a link is clicked, it provides
superior effectiveness in catching and neutralizing new exploits for all users on any device
from any location.
When a user opens a message, the messages will not be visibly altered, but hovering over a
link shows a ‘rewritten URL’, containing http://scanmail.trustwave.com/
When the user clicks a link, the URL is passed to the Trustwave Link Validator for evaluation.
An information page displays briefly (usually for 1-2 seconds):
