The increase in telework and digital onboarding has only proven to put companies at a larger risk of falling victim to phishing schemes. Did you know phishing attacks actually trace back to the mid-1990s? Back then scammers were stealing passwords and credit card information using AOL. Our extensive knowledge of how to protect your business from phishing attacks will keep your business from experiencing an unwanted attack that leaves you feeling vulnerable and in a mess.
Protecting Your Company From Phishing Schemes
Defining Phishing Schemes
So what are these cyber attacks referred to as phishing? They are fraudulent methodology with the goal to undermine an individual and cause them to take action that is against their best wishes. Common types of phishing affecting businesses worldwide include email, spear, HTTPs, and CEO fraud.
Phishing Schemes are Increasing in Frequency
While hackers commonly target financial institutions, they aren’t the only companies at risk. A study conducted by Statista as an overview of the first quarter of 2022 showed that 20.5% of phishing attacks were against web-based software services and webmail. Unfortunately, phishing was the most common type of cybercrime reported in 2021, and we expect to see that continue in 2022. There were more than 324 thousand complaints filed with the U.S. Internet Crime Compliance Center. What types of things do you need to look out for to protect your company from phishing schemes?
Email Phishing
Email phishing is discussed most often in the corporate industry. Hackers send emails to victims posing as a well-known brand in an attempt to encourage people to click a link. Typically, the links lead to a malicious website. These websites have the capability to infiltrate your computer by stealing your credentials and installing malware on your device. They can seem harmless due to hackers hiding the malware in commonly accessed documents like PDFs. Once you open the PDF, your computer is infiltrated by the attackers.
HTTPS attacks
In a previous article, we discussed the risks involved in using public wifi and how being sure to access websites using HTTPS can help keep your information protected. HTTPS uses encryption to increase security, but cybercriminals are now leveraging HTTPS (hypertext transfer protocol secure) in the links that they put into phishing emails.
Mitigating your Risk of Attack
You can decrease your likelihood of falling victim to a phishing attack with a few steps to validate legitimacy. Always check to make sure all of the included contact information looks legitimate. Run a quick Google search on any listed addresses to see if the business has a physical address that matches what is listed in the email. Verify that the sender’s address comes from a matching domain. Be very leery of misspellings. Phishing emails sometimes have misspelled links or downloads. Never, ever, click on shortened links, hypertext links, images, or logos. These attachments can contain fake HTML attributes.
Employee Awareness
Hackers are working around the clock to gain access to your business’s private information. TEK Utah is here to prevent them from being successful. TEK Utah provides ongoing employee training and user awareness around these kinds of attacks. We equip your employees with the knowledge they need to identify phishing schemes and the confidence to speak up when they believe something is phish-y.