UK Foreign Secretary falls victim to hoax video call

News broke at the end of last week that ex-prime minister and now UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has fallen victim to a hoax video call.  The call was with someone  pretending to be former Ukrainian President Petro Proshenko, with whom Cameron had multiple dealings, including face-to-face, during his tenure as Prime Minister.  As soon as the impostor started asking for contact details, Cameron smelt a rat and ended the conversation, with no sensitive information exchanged.

If the very top of the UK establishment can be contacted via a hoax video call, what chance is there for the rest of us?  This was clearly a sophisticated targeted attack, given that Mr. Cameron was taken in by the impersonation.

Know who you are talking to with Identity-based encryption

Once again, we are reminded of the need to be vigilant with sensitive communications, and this incident highlights the benefits of using a centrally managed communications platform over which your organisation has complete control, so that all users are verified before they join the platform. Using identity-based encryption, such as the NCSC’s MIKEY­-SAKKE protocol, means that users can be confident that the person contacting them via the platform is who they say they are, and not an impostor, or an AI-generated deepfake.

Other recent worrying stories, include the publication of 361 million email addresses, username and passwords via Telegram channels, and a ransomware attack on London hospitals. Indeed, even mainstream business titles like the Economist are now also writing about the vulnerabilities of global telecommunications infrastructure with a recent article pithily entitled ‘Snooped dog and bone’ that talks about the shortcomings of Signalling System 7 (SS7). This is something that Armour highlighted many years ago in our blogs such as SS7 vulnerability still going strong near the White House and the now  classic, What’s up with WhatsApp.

Secure by Design beats unsanctioned shadow IT

All of this points to a requirement for all organisations to step up cyber security, particularly when dealing with external third parties. When it comes to enterprise secure communications, organisations should avoid unsanctioned ‘shadow IT’ solutions. A built-for-purpose, Secure by Design secure comms platform can provide a slick user experience to rival any consumer app, plus the ability to manage and control data.  Whether on-premises or a secure hosted solution, an enterprise-grade secure comms platform that covers voice calls, instant messaging and video conferencing ensures data sovereignty (your data stays on sovereign soil, i.e. you know where it is being held) and data separation (no mixing of data, be that of different classifications of data, or business and personal).

For more information about how the award-winning, Armour Secure Communications Platform can protect your organisation’s sensitive conversations, contact us today: sales@armourcomms.com