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Your Bleeped Up Brain

The cable TV channel H2 is running a mini-series on the human mind - Your Bleeped Up Brain. The series is truly fascinating.  While we think our heads contain a highly precise computer, it turns out that the ball of matter inside our heads is good at navigating life, but not very good at discerning fine details out of a complex environment. For those us of in the cybersecurity world, the last episode - Deception - is particularly interesting.  In Deception, the show presents several examples of how the brain takes incomplete or inaccurate information and completes the story to [...]

2018-04-05T13:20:49-04:00August 6th, 2013|Iconix Truemark Service, Phishing, SP Guard, spear phishing|

Spearphishing – The Movie

Eric Fiterman of Rogue Networks/Methodvue demonstrates how to construct a malicious email that effectively impersonates President Obama. Using malware delivered in an attachment, Fiterman takes control of the recipient’s computer. Watch as he steals passwords, searches for files and even takes a picture of his victim using the computer’s camera.   What permits Fiterman to infiltrate this computer?  The recipient can't distinguish a real email from the President from a fake email from the President.  People need to know if an email is really from the President. They need to know if an email is really from a co-worker.  SP Guard from Iconix [...]

2017-01-07T17:35:24-05:00March 15th, 2012|SP Guard, spear phishing|

Iconix Issued New Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a new patent to Iconix titled, "System and method for securely performing multiple stage email processing with embedded codes." The abstract for U.S. Patent 11,770,353, dated September 26, 2023, states: "A system and method for performing email processing at multiple stages along an email delivery chain. A first embodiment uses an email filter to receive information about an email message from a message transfer agent and then perform limited email pre-processing on the email message. The email filter then stores instructions and data such as the results from the email pre-processing [...]

Iconix Issued Nineteenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's nineteenth patent titled, "Techniques for Integrating External Content from Advertising Services into Client Applications." The abstract for U.S. Patent 11,416,875, dated August 16, 2022, states: "Techniques for integrating advertising content into client applications are presented. Events occurring within client applications are monitored and when a predefined event is encountered and external advertising service is consulted for acquiring external content. The external content is then integrated into one or more portions of presentations associated with the client applications."

Iconix Issued Eighteenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's eighteenth patent titled "User interface for email inbox to call attention differently to different classes of email." The abstract for U.S. Patent 11,343,215, dated May 24, 2022, states: "A user interface for email users which calls attention to one or more categories of emails in different ways. In some species, at least three categories are used: branded senders with Truemarks; white list buddies; and fraudulent emails which are either not from the domain they purport to be from or in which the content was tampered. The preferred embodiment authenticates emails [...]

Iconix Issued Seventeenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's seventeenth patent titled "System and method for securely performing multiple stage email processing with embedded codes"   The abstract for U.S. Patent 11,271,883, dated March 8, 2022, states: "A system and method for performing email processing at multiple stages along an email delivery chain. A first embodiment uses an email filter to receive information about an email message from a message transfer agent and then perform limited email pre-processing on the email message. The email filter then stores instructions and data such as the results from the email pre-processing into [...]

Iconix Issued Fourteenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's fourteenth patent titled "User Interface for email inbox to call attention differently to different classes of email."   The abstract for U.S. Patent 10,594,645, dated March 17, 2020, states: "A user interface for email users which calls attention to one or more categories of emails in different ways. In some species, at least three categories are used: branded senders with Trumarks; white list buddies; and fraudulent emails which are either not from the domain they purport to be from or in which the content was tampered. The preferred embodiment authenticates [...]

Iconix Issued Thirteenth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's thirteenth patent titled "Authenticating and confidence marking e-mail messages." The abstract for U.S. Patent 10,541,956, dated January 21, 2020, states: "Methods and systems for authenticating and confidence marking e-mail messages are described. One embodiment describes a method of authenticating an e-mail message. This method involves extracting a plurality of e-mail headers associated with the e-mail message, and identifying a sending edge mail transfer agent (MTA). The method then calls for determining if the sending edge MTA is authorized to send the e-mail message."

Iran Increasing Cyberattacks

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is warning that Iran is stepping up its cyberattacks on the U.S. Battle Stations 2.0 According to press reports, one of the techniques the Iranians are using is --- don't tell me ---- Your guessed it, spearphishing emails to gain entry to U.S. systems. SP Guard from Iconix helps fight spear phishing emails by countering deception using patented visual identification technology.

Iconix Issued Twelfth Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's twelfth patent titled "E-Mail Message Authentication Extending Standards Compliant Techniques." The abstract for U.S. Patent 10,277,397, dated April 30, 2019, states: "A system and method for e-mail authentication. The method includes aggregating a plurality of headers associated with an e-mail message and transmitting the aggregated plurality of headers to a validation service. A validation response is then received from the validation service. The e-mail is authenticated based on the validation response."

Iconix Issued Eleventh Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Iconix's eleventh patent titled "Techniques for integrating external content from advertising services into client applications." The abstract for U.S. Patent 10,248,958, dated April 2, 2019, states: "Techniques for integrating advertising content into client applications are presented. Events occurring within client applications are monitored and when a predefined event is encountered and external advertising service is consulted for acquiring external content. The external content is then integrated into one or more portions of presentations associated with the client applications."

Mueller Report – Iconix Comments

On March 24, 2019, Attorney General Barr released his summary of the Mueller Report. While there has been a lot of coverage of the report, this passage about Russian interference has received little attention in the media: The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, [...]