You know that phishing and spam attacks are a massive security challenge for your company. We constantly hear about the consequences of these kinds of attacks in the news.
What can a company do to
keep their information secure?
Hackers Are Everywhere
Hackers will do everything and anything they can to steal your valuable information. Your company’s credit cards, passwords, and sensitive data are prime targets for today’s latest phishing schemes.
Hackers are smart, unfortunately. They try using many different methods to steal this important info. From spam emails to social media – your info is at risk.
All forms of communication provide an open window of opportunity to a hacker to reach your private data, and take it.
This is why your businesses must do everything possible to be safe.
Common Types Of Phishing And Spam
Phishing and spam are both common forms of what is called “social engineering”.
What is social engineering?
Social engineering utilizes and exploits our human psychologically to find unique ways to manipulate a person into accidentally giving access to their personal or company information.
It’s ruthless and all too common.
Some common forms of phishing and spamming are:
- Phishing Email: What is a phishing scam? Well, have you ever accidentally clicked on spam link? A hacker creates an email address that looks just like a legitimate email address for your company (or from a person you trust). Within this email, the hacker will request that the reader clicks on a dangerous link that gives them access to information, data, or systems. They sometimes also ask a reader to change their passwords – or even send money! Dangerous files may be attached and clicked on.
- Executive phishing: This form of attack involves a company email takeover. It has your entire company (executives and management, too) put in real danger. Essentially, a phisher finds a way to acquire an email address and password of a higher up person in your company. They then use these credentials to do an “email bomb spam” or “snowshoe spam” to target all of your company members, colleagues and customers – in one swift shot.
- Clone Phishing: what is clone phishing? For clone phishing (also called spear phishing) a hacker creates a completely fake company name. They use stolen information and data to make things seem very real, then they target an individual in a pitch email that they send to their target. Their spam emails are so incredibly compelling – a victim can easily fall into their trap. Take swift steps to prevent spear phishing and learn what helps protect from spearfishing.
- Barrel Phishing: What is barrel phishing? Barrel phishing is a very common form of attack. With this, the scammer targets a victim with two or more emails. The first email is simple and created as a bait to gain the trust of their victim. They then may think that it came from a trusted source, and be scammed by the second email they receive.
- Phone Phishing: Phone phishing takes advantage of VoIP (voice over internet protocol) technology. Using this technique, the ruthless scammer finds a way to impersonate an individual or a company for their benefit. Their grand scam utilizes confidential data they have hacked, and uses it to scam their target. (For example: a criminal might impersonate your internal tech support to trick your staff into handing over their passwords or data).
What Can You Do To Prevent Phishing And Spam?
A business is especially vulnerable to nasty slam method phishing. Your company image, financials and more can be damaged. It is incredibly important to prevent these phishing and spam attacks as swiftly and effectively as possible.
So what can you do to protect their business email security from these attacks?
Steps to protect you and your company via email:
- Do not open emails from unknown senders. Confirm that the email address is “real” by actually seeing the full address an email is coming from – do this by hovering over it to see the full address. Avoid opening anything from weird email addresses.
- Be cautious with all attachments and do not click links. Links should be a major red flag.
- What is a common indicator of a phishing attempt? Do you see misspellings or strange grammar? These are both common signs of a hack. Report to your IT department immediately.
- Is the email asking for urgent action? Is there a threat of some kind? Avoid all emails like these. Report immediately.
Most of these steps seem like common sense. Take your time with your email. Read through them thoroughly, and in general, if you are concerned, report it.
It’s better to be safe than sorry.
More Steps To Protect Your Company:
- Keep your company passwords safe by using longer/case sensitive passwords. Change your passwords frequently for safety. Insist your employees regularly do. Use authentication for an added step of protection.
- Set up phishing ransomware and spear phishing protection to help you and your employees deal with the risk. It will filter out much of the “junk” email and help to prevent email hacking.
- Regularly have phishing and social engineering training for your employees and staff to train them on measures that they can take to prevent phishing and spamming. This will help them to identify what is a phishing scam. This training can (and does) prevent a large amount of attacks.
- Carefully vet all of your current and new employees. Internal spamming is also a real threat, so you want to be cautious inside and outside of your company walls.
- Utilize a reputable IT security company, like ETS, to add protective phishing filters and software on all of your company devices and websites, This will help to keep your company as safe as possible. This really is your safest bet against dangerous attacks. Many IT companies can also train your employees for you to keep your data extra secure.
Overall Protection
Today’s cyber criminals are ruthless!
These hackers are always finding new and creative ways to access your private company data. They use increasingly sneaky tools – beyond simply opening spam – to convince unknowing individuals to innocently divulge their personal and company information.
Your systems are very vulnerable and can easily be compromised by these spam risks. That’s why it is critical to utilize phishing prevention best practices.
It’s critical to focus on the human element of phishing and spam, while backing this with the latest anti-virus software, phishing filters and security measures.
Train yourself and your employees on a regular basis, and hire an IT firm like ETS to take the worry out of security. ETS can help give you the highest protection for your company’s confidential and sensitive data.
Let’s keep you safe, together.
