Most of the time clicking on the link will get to a phishing page to harvest credentials or prompt to download a zip or pdf which has the actual malware exploit/payload.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

True, in many cases there is a whole chain of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, and everything starts with one phishing mail. For example:

successful phishing
VPN without 2FA, allowing the attacker access to company services
internal services with vulnerabilities, allowing the attacker to compromise a server
permission misconfiguration, allowing lateral movement

That was the point of this meme. It is not phishing alone that gets the company in trouble, its mostly a series of misconfigurations.

I think that in cyber security, we have to assume that phishing will be successful sometimes - and be prepared when it happens.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Yep and then whatever is trying to execute should be limited by user permissions, app whitelists, EDR / MDR, and a pile of other defenses.