Agent Tesla Malware

How to Protect Against Agent Tesla Malware

Some ways to protect against and mitigate the impact of Agent Tesla infections include:

• Anti-Phishing Protection: Agent Tesla malware is commonly delivered in an obfuscated form attached to phishing emails. Detecting and blocking this malware from reaching employees’ inboxes requires anti-phishing solutions capable of analyzing attachments and detecting malicious functionality within an isolated, sandboxed environment.
• Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR): CDR solutions dissect files, excise malicious content, and rebuild the sanitized file before allowing it to continue on to a user’s inbox. This provides users with access to potentially important files while eliminating the risk of malware infections.
• Endpoint Detection and Response: Agent Tesla malware unpacks itself through multiple stages on the endpoint, making it difficult to identify the malicious functionality in the malware’s original form. Endpoint security solutions installed on infected devices can identify and terminate a malware infection once it reveals itself.
• Multi-Factor Authentication: Agent Tesla malware is designed to steal login credentials on infected machines to provide attackers with access to online accounts. Deploying and enforcing the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible makes it more difficult for an attacker to make use of stolen credentials.
• Zero Trust Access Management: A successful Agent Tesla attack may grant an attacker access to a user’s corporate accounts on various systems. Implementing access management based on zero trust principles limits the damage incurred by a compromised account.
• User Behavior Monitoring: Agent Tesla is designed to allow attackers to take over legitimate corporate accounts. Monitoring account behavior for anomalous behavior can enable an organization to identify potentially compromised user accounts.
• Employee Security Training: Agent Tesla malware is spread through spear phishing campaigns, which are designed to trick users into opening malicious files. Cybersecurity awareness training is essential to teaching employees to recognize and properly respond to these emails to minimize the risk that they pose to the organization.