Patrick Peterson: 80 percent of agencies still lack spear phishing protection




Federal Drive with Tom Temin show

Summary: By some estimates, around 90 percent of all data breaches start out as successful email spear phishing attacks. That's one reason the Homeland Security Department issued a binding operational directive two weeks ago ordering all federal agencies to implement an email security standard called DMARC, which effectively blocks scammers from sending mail from spoofed email addresses. Most commercial email providers have already implemented DMARC, but according to a new study by the email security firm Agari, more than 80 percent of federal agencies still haven't. Patrick Peterson is Agari's founder and executive chairman. He spoke with the Federal Drive about how DMARC came to be, and how it can improve an agency's cyber defenses.