Let us start by understanding what Phishing actually is. The practice in which fraudulent emails are sent claiming to be from popular companies, banks, government organizations, asking for personal information such as passwords, pin numbers, bank account details, etc. is known as phishing.
Do you know that 30% of the phishing emails get opened by the employees? Imagine the amount of risk that causes for the employees and the organization they are working for. To prevent phishing attacks one has to have knowledge about the various ways in which the crimes can be committed. Here are a few types of phishing threats that can cause potential harm to the organizations.
Table of Contents
Whaling Attacks
The criminals take the persona of a C-level executive or higher ranking employees to build a rapport with the engineers.
They then convince the employees to follow a certain procedure and directions to steal all the employees and company related information. They use the company finances for their personal expenditure draining the accounts gradually.
Spear Phishing
Sending an email impersonating a trusted employee or the CEO of a company, or a colleague is known as Spear Phishing.
CEO Fraud
This is one of the cleverest ways to dupe someone. Acting as the CEO of a company provides certain authority to demand information. The criminals use the company domain name with slight alterations for the task.
Business Email Compromise (BEC)
This is one of the thriving scams in the market that can target any organization.
The key dealer, vendors, and suppliers of a company are impersonated by the criminals. They ask to send the advance payments, etc. thereby duping the company for huge amounts of money.
Domain Spoofing
This is the most difficult one to detect. It is very easy to miss a character in the email address or the website URL by most of us.
Zero Day Attacks
This is a relatively new attack that has yet not been detected by the spam algorithms. It takes the companies 24-48 hours to release a signature that is used to stop the phishing. According to research, it takes 82 seconds for the first victim to respond to a phishing email.
Malware and Ransomware
Malware is software used by the criminals to enter the system of a company and take control over it blocking out the access to the system.
Ransomware is similar but the criminals demand repayment or an amount as a ransom to release the system back to the owners.
Brand Forgery
Forging the name of a reputed brand and impersonating them in the emails is known as Brand Forgery.
The criminals send links to dubious websites and steal the data.
To prevent phishing attacks and safeguard the companies, new establishments have come forward to create an all-round protection system that detects and nullifies the phishing attacks. Using an affordable cloud-based email security platform can be a good way of detecting the phishing attacks by fraudsters.
A few ways in which the phishing attacks can be prevented are as follows.
Protect and Train
Warning banners are placed directly in the emails to hint and offer guidance about suspicious emails.
User-friendly Warnings
Highlighting the type of email with words like safe, unusual, and malicious to help employees steer clear and report the suspicious emails they receive.
Simple to Use
The advanced dashboard makes it easier to keep track of the threats and the blocked attempts of phishing attacks.
Deploy Effortlessly
Can be integrated into any of Exchange, Office, G Suite systems within no time at all.
The email protection services can be used from mobile devices as well. The emails can be reported with just a click from any device, any location, by any employee or client.
Simply training the employees will not be enough to prevent the phishing attacks on a company. The criminals keep finding new ways to dupe their victims. It is important to have a comprehensive system installed to alert the employees and the administrators about the threats and help them find ways to secure their system.
James Dean
James Dean is a content handler and blogger who loves to write as freelancer for their readers and followers. Dean has a fantastic ability to make the most complex subject matter easy to understand.