About Us | Contact Us
View Cart

“Reply-All” Email Incident Hits Microsoft

By Vigilize | Monday, January 28, 2019 - Leave a Comment

At its peak over 11,500 employees were ensnared in the email chain…


An article review.


When it comes to email awareness we usually focus on threats coming into our mailboxes from the outside world, like phishing scams. A recent incident at Microsoft, however, serves as a reminder that there’s more than phishing to be aware of when it comes to email.

The incident, detailed in an article sent to us by our friend Wes Pollard, involved 11,543 employees at its peak and reportedly “caused chaos” for an entire day. What began as a single message sent to all Microsoft employees registered to the organization’s GitHub account soon spiraled out of control, as other employees made the mistake of replying to everyone in the chain asking to be unsubscribed, or to make jokes.

While this case resolved itself quickly and didn’t result in any lasting damage, it serves as a reminder to always be aware of who you are sending an email to! Auto-completion of addresses in Outlook can make it easy to accidentally fill in the name of a mailing list, or a coworker who was not the intended recipient of the email.

Such incidents can simply be embarrassing, or they could result in confidential information going to one (or more!) incorrect addresses. If all that weren’t bad enough, the article notes how a similar incident in 1997 managed to generate enough traffic to bring down Microsoft’s own Exchange servers, effectively launching a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack on themselves!

Considering how dry awareness training can sometimes be, we think this serves as a humorous way to help show your employees how email related risks can originate from within their own group…as well as from the outside world.


Original article by Matt Weinberger reporting for Business Insider.


same_strip_012513


 

Latest News
    Artificial intelligence carries risk, but so does organic ignorance … Another one of those Dan’s New Leaf Posts, meant to inspire thought about IT Governance . . . . At a recent conference, I noticed two camps emerging in the debate over artificial intelligence. Some people embrace AI as a tool, while others support Elon […]
    PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BUSINESS NEWS NEW EMPLOYEE FOR INFOTEX We are pleased to announce the appointment of Nathan Taylor as our new Network Administrator at infotex.  “We are very excited to have Nathan join our team as a Network Administrator and look forward to his contributions to maintaining and improving our infrastructure!” […]
    about artificial intelligence . . . And who will protect us from it . . .  Another one of those Dan’s New Leaf Posts, meant to inspire thought about IT Governance . . . . Just watched some press on the the Senate hearings over regulating AI. The normal senator faces, Sam Altman of OpenAI, […]
    The Evolution of an Inside Term Used in our Vendor Risk Report Another one of those Dan’s New Leaf Posts, meant to inspire thought about IT Governance . . . . Those who audit infotex know that our vendor risk report refers to a couple of our providers as “ransomware companies.” This reference started evolving […]
    Another awareness poster for YOUR customers (and users). Now that we have our own employees aware, maybe it’s time to start posting content for our customers! Check out posters.infotex.com for the whole collection! Download the large versions here: Awareness Poster (Portrait) Awareness Poster (Landscape) You are welcome to print out and distribute this around your […]
    New tools could allow unskilled attackers to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks… An article review. Imagine a world where you receive a call from your boss asking you to assist them with something… only it’s not your boss, but an AI being used by an attacker.  This isn’t science fiction, it’s an actual attack that has […]
    Unavailability Strikes Where it doesn’t matter anyway Another one of those Dan’s New Leaf Posts, meant to inspire thought about IT Governance . . . . So, I’m writing today’s article from a resort in the middle of Wisconsin.  I want to make sure I’m staying on top of my New Leaf, which is to […]
    . . . and the importance of segregated response. The latest edition of Executive Vice President, Michael Hartke’s article series! In 2007 when I first joined infotex, coming from small to medium sized business general IT support into the world of cybersecurity, the one thing that was very hard for me to internally rectify was […]
    How concerts can help us understand APTs . . . Especially if you use your imagination! Another one of those Dan’s New Leaf Posts, meant to inspire thought about IT Governance . . . . My daughter reminded me of a concert Stacey and I attended way back in 2013, in Chicago.  It was one […]
    Mutiny! The Malicious Insider Threat Webinar Registration A Webinar-Video It is often awkward to bring up the one attack vector most of us have not addressed. The malicious insider threat. Even if we can flaunt all statistics and claim that the likelihood of an insider attack is low in our bank, the impact is still […]