There Are Few More Serious Security Problems than Phishing

Phishing is a serious matter, so serious that it is responsible for a quarter of all data breaches. Therefore, you need to consider it a threat to your business, whether you think these attacks are obvious or not. Phishing is a popular tool in the hacker’s arsenal, so you should be prepared to address it with your staff to preserve your business’ future.

It’s only right that we take today’s blog as an opportunity to investigate phishing and what you can do to stop it.

Defining Phishing Attacks

Phishing is a common cybersecurity threat in which criminals will attempt to infiltrate your network, but it’s not all about coding threats or infecting malware. It’s more about tricking users into doing something that the hacker wants them to do, and it’s extraordinarily effective.

Phishing attacks are conducted almost entirely through communications. The cybercriminal attempts to get the user to share information willingly, like entering data into an online form or downloading an attachment. This type of social engineering is a major threat to today’s business world.

You can see now why it is so important that your team members also know how to identify and respond to phishing attacks. Let’s take a closer look at some of the aspects involved with identification and response to phishing attacks.

What Do You Need to Know?

Phishing attacks rely on the fact that the end user does not know they are being targeted, so if the user can make the determination that they are a phishing target, they can take appropriate action. That said, it’s also important to have as many lines of defense up as possible to mitigate the chances of encountering a phishing threat in the first place.

At the end of the day, educating your workforce on phishing tactics will be the most crucial and effective way to keep them from falling for these tricks. After all, your cybersecurity solutions are only effective if your team sticks to the policies they help you reinforce. We recommend that end users keep the following best practices in mind:

• Do they recognize the sender of a suspicious email, or can it be confirmed via a quick Google search?
• Do links match where they appear to go when you hover your cursor over them, or do they direct to somewhere unexpected?
• Does the language and tone used in the message match the person it is purportedly from? On the subject, would they be the one to reach out to you for assistance?

If your team doesn’t know the answer to one of the above questions, we urge them to work with your IT department to learn more about phishing defense.

Let Us Do the Heavy Lifting for You

Horne & Benik can help your organization educate its employees and implement security solutions to protect against phishing attacks. To learn more, contact us at (603) 499-4400 today.