Although it appeared about three decades ago, phishing is still around today. Scammers may attempt to steal your organisation’s sensitive data, such as customer details, financial information, or login credentials, resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and costly legal and compliance issues. What makes it worse is that even a single employee following the wrong link can expose the entire organisation to the risk of phishing attacks.
What is phishing? What are the most common phishing techniques? How to prevent phishing attacks in an organisation? Read our article to find out the answers to these and more questions.
What is phishing?
One of the most common types of cyber attack, phishing involves using fraudulent communications (emails, text messages, phone calls, etc.) to trick individuals into sharing sensitive information, such as login credentials or credit card details, downloading malware, or clicking on malicious links that can lead to unauthorised access to personal accounts, networks, or systems.
How to recognize a phishing attempt?
Phishing messages closely imitate legitimate communications. They can even include logos of well-known companies, making it difficult to spot a threat at first sight. However, here are some signs that can help you identify a potential phishing attack:
- Phishing emails usually land in the spam folder. Email service providers implement email security standards known as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks to authenticate the origin of an email. If an email fails to pass one or more of these checks, it is marked as spam, which is why it’s quite common for phishing emails to appear in your spam folder.
- Suspicious sender addresses. To win users’ trust, cybercriminals create email addresses that look similar to legitimate companies’ addresses. These addresses usually contain small, deliberate mistakes that are easy to overlook, for instance, “service@paypa1.com” instead of “service@paypal.com.”
- Generic greetings. A legitimate organisation will likely address you by name in an email. On the contrary, generic greetings like “Dear Customer” or “Dear User” often indicate a phishing scam.
- The message creates a sense of urgency. Phishing emails usually give you a sense of urgency to convince you to take action. For example, an email can say that the recipient has won a prize and must act within a limited time to claim it or that suspicious activity has been noticed on the user’s account, urging them to click a link to “confirm” their account details.
- Poor grammar and spelling. Phishing emails typically contain grammar and spelling mistakes.
- Links and attachments. To steal your sensitive information, scammers include links to fake websites where you’re expected to enter your data. It’s crucial to carefully examine the link before clicking on it. Scammers often use slight misspellings, extra characters, or similar-looking symbols to mimic legitimate domains (e.g., “micr0soft.com” instead of “microsoft.com”). Also, scammy messages can include unsolicited attachments that may look like invoices, receipts, or other official documents but contain malicious code designed to harm your system.
- Requests for sensitive data. A message directly asking you to share your personal data or other sensitive information is an obvious sign of a phishing attack. Authentic organisations never ask for passwords, credit card numbers, or security codes through email or text messages.
Types of phishing attacks
When they first appeared in the mid-1990s, phishing attacks involved instant messaging and email to obtain users’ passwords and hijack their accounts. However, with the advancements in technology, phishing went far beyond the old-school scam. Here are the most common types of phishing attacks you might encounter today.
Email phishing
Phishing emails are the most widespread form of phishing scams, where scammers send emails that mimic those you get from banks, online stores, or social media platforms. These emails typically urge you to follow links, which direct you to malicious websites designed to capture your login credentials or trick you into downloading malicious software.
Spear phishing
Spear phishing is a more targeted form of email phishing. Scammers gather information about their victims through social media profiles or company websites to create highly personalised emails that seem to come from a trusted source like a colleague or boss. Phishing attacks of this type are particularly dangerous since they’re more difficult to detect.
Smishing
Smishing involves sending fraudulent text messages that typically claim to be from your bank or a package delivery service. People trust text messages more than emails, making smishing a popular method among scammers.
Vishing
In vishing attacks, scammers use phone calls to trick you into sharing information. In most cases, the callers claim there’s a problem with your bank account or that you’ve just won a prize. They usually ask victims to provide their credit card data or convince them to make a payment.
Clone phishing
Clone phishing is when attackers create an identical copy of a legitimate email you’ve already received but with a link to a malicious website. For instance, if you previously received a tracking link from a delivery service, the attacker may resend a nearly identical email, claiming there’s an update. Because the email looks familiar, recipients are more likely to trust it.
Whaling
Whaling is a form of phishing scam targeted at high-profile individuals, such as CEOs, CFOs, or other top executives. These individuals have access to sensitive company data and large sums of money, so scammers spare no effort to craft convincing messages. For example, a whaling email might look like a subpoena or a request from a trusted partner, prompting the user to disclose confidential information or authorise financial transfers.
Quishing
Quishing uses QR codes to direct victims to phishing websites. Scammers place fake QR codes on posters, flyers, or even in emails.
HTTPS phishing
HTTPS phishing is when scammers create a site that looks identical to a legitimate one but uses “HTTPS” in the URL so that users think the site is secure. These websites may look like an online store’s or bank’s page, asking you to enter your login credentials or credit card information.
Pop-up phishing
As their name suggests, pop-up phishing attacks use pop-up windows that appear while you’re browsing the internet. They often mimic a security warning or system alert, urging you to click on a link or download a file.
Evil Twin phishing
Evil Twin phishing is a practice of creating fake Wi-Fi networks that look like legitimate public Wi-Fi hotspots. Once you connect to the fake network, attackers can intercept the data you send, including login credentials, credit card numbers, or other sensitive information.
Social media phishing
Social media phishing happens when scammers use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn to send you messages that look like from a friend. In these messages, fraudsters usually ask you for money or offer to click on a link to take part in a survey.
Tips to prevent phishing attacks in your organisation
While phishing attacks can create major problems for individuals, things get way more serious when scammers attempt to attack an organisation. This results in data breaches, significant financial losses, and a damaged reputation.
Preventing phishing attacks in an organisation requires a proactive approach combining technology, training, and clear policies. Here are some actionable tips on how to prevent phishing attacks in an organisation.
Educate employees
The number one thing you should do to protect your company from phishing attacks is to educate your staff members about the dangers of phishing scams and the ways to identify a phishing attempt.
Train your employees to spot suspicious emails by checking them against the features characteristic of scammy messages, such as a sense of urgency, unexpected attachments, strange links, or directly asking for sensitive information. Also, establish a clear process for reporting phishing attempts.
Run simulated phishing campaigns
A simulated phishing attack can help you assess your employees’ security awareness levels. Regular simulated phishing exercises allow organisations to reinforce their anti-phishing efforts and identify areas that need additional training.
Use email filtering tools and DNS filtering
Email filters and specialised anti-phishing tools help prevent malicious emails from reaching your employees’ inboxes. These systems scrutinise emails for signs of phishing and block potential threats.
Also, implement DNS filtering for blocking malicious websites. This can prevent employees from accidentally visiting phishing sites, even if they click on a link in a phishing email.
Require multi-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a type of login process that requires users to provide more data than just a password, such as a fingerprint scan, a code sent to their email or phone, an answer to a secret question, etc. Multi-factor authentication is an effective anti-phishing tactic, as it provides an additional layer of security to your systems, making it impossible to access your organisation’s data with just stolen credentials. Therefore, it’s critical to require multi-factor authentication for all employees who have access to sensitive information.
Keep your systems up to date
Many phishing attempts rely on exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated systems. Therefore, another critical step to block phishing attempts is to regularly update your operating systems and applications with the latest security patches.
Work out a phishing response plan
While no strategy can guarantee absolute phishing protection, a clear response plan will help you minimise the consequences of a phishing attack when it happens. A phishing response plan should include steps for isolating infected systems, clear instructions on what actions affected employees should take, and ways of notifying clients if their data has been compromised.
Tips for employees to prevent phishing attacks
Even when an organisation implements all necessary security measures, individual employees can still fall victim to social engineering and accidentally compromise the company’s confidential data. We’ve already mentioned that educating employees is a critical step in phishing prevention. Here are more detailed, employee-focused tips on how to prevent phishing.
- Learn to recognise phishing attempts. Be extremely careful when opening a message from an unfamiliar sender. Look for signs typical of a phishing scam, such as misspellings, suspicious attachments, urgent requests for sensitive information, or unexpected links. Always double-check the sender’s email address for subtle variations, like extra characters or unusual domains.
- Never share your personal information. Don’t include your sensitive information even when sending emails to people you trust.
- Verify the email with the sender. Sometimes, it’s hard to differentiate fake emails from authentic ones. If an email looks suspicious, consider independently confirming it with the sender before clicking on any links and downloading files. The easiest way to do this is through a phone call or text message.
- Create strong passwords. Use reliable passwords and enable multifactor authentication to secure your accounts from unauthorised access.
- Don’t provide your data to an unsecured site. Avoid entering any sensitive data or downloading files from a website whose URL doesn’t start with “https” or there’s no closed padlock icon next to it.
- Report phishing immediately. If you get a suspected phishing email, report it to your IT department or security team as soon as possible — this will help protect others in your company from falling for the same scam.
How Sereno IT can help
Phishing is an issue you shouldn’t overlook. By visiting the wrong websites or downloading malicious files, employees can easily let cyber criminals access your customers’ sensitive data, steal money, or disrupt your operations.
Employee training should be the first step in preventing and mitigating phishing attacks. However, it’s equally crucial to protect your organisation with robust technological measures. If you need a reliable IT partner to help you with this, Sereno can help. We provide comprehensive cyber security services, including DNS filtering, implementing spam filters, security awareness training, phishing simulations, and more to ensure that your organisation is securely protected against phishing attacks and their consequences.
