Cybersecurity Glossary

Spam email is unsolicited and often unwanted messages sent via email to an individual. Spam emails are typically sent out to a mass audience via botnets. While often non-malicious, spam emails can contain malware or ransomware that triggers when an individual engages with the email content. However, spam email is usually distributed for email marketing purposes. An anti-spam engine can help organizations automatically detect and block spam emails.

A form of social engineering, spear phishing is a malicious email that impersonates an individual for the purpose of tricking a recipient into completing a desired action—typically financial in nature. Often, a hacker will impersonate a victim’s acquaintances, such as colleagues, executives, clients, or vendors.

Supply chain security is an essential component of supply chain management that works to mitigate threats, both in the real world and in cyberspace. Supply chain attacks have risen in recent years, and occur when a hacker infiltrates your IT infrastructure to access sensitive information. Properly securing your supply chain from cyberthreats is imperative in order to keep sensitive data secure, as well as avoid financial losses and delivery inefficiencies.

Supply chain security minimizes the likelihood of cybercriminals taking over your network. The SolarWinds breach that occurred in December 2020 should be looked at as a cautionary tale for organizations that handle large volumes of data. The attack impacted 18,000 government and private networks and compromised multiple supply chain layers. For those that provide software or hardware to their clients, implementing effective supply chain security solutions is a must in today’s world.