Phishing attacks are one of the most frequent and pernicious cyber threats to individuals and organizations today. Phishing attacks are perpetrated by criminals who exploit human trust and vulnerabilities that exist in the online digital world. Awareness of phishing attacks continues to grow, but we observe phishing attack sophistication increasing as well.
Understanding how phishing attacks are delivered – and how to mitigate the chances of being a victim of one – is the first step to protecting yourself. This guide provides awareness and resources to deal with phishing attacks, whether you are awaiting an email to manage an IT security risk or checking your personal inbox.
Keep reading this article to learn about the anatomy of a phishing attack and outline practical ways to prevent becoming a victim. Â
Understand Phishing Attacks and Effective Ways to Stop Them
Phishing is here to stay. Actually, with each year that goes by, it gets more crafty. The best defense against it is a combination of practical tools and vigilance. While security technologies and protocols serve as a robust safety net, knowing how phishing operates gives you the insight to recognize warning signs.
Let’s read further to understand phishing attacks in detail and effective ways to stop them.
1. Anatomy of Phishing Attacks
In order to react properly when facing phishing and defend adequately, it can be useful to familiarize yourself with how these scams tend to occur. Although the exact way phishing scams are presented can differ, there are identifiable stages. Here are the stages:
A) Target Identification
In all phishing attacks, the first step is targeting. Cybercriminals can potentially gather information about individuals from publicly accessible resources like LinkedIn sites, social media, and business sites.
Cybercriminals often use personal information to create messages that seem realistic to certain targets for spear-phishing and focused assaults. Fraudsters are currently only searching for possible victims who might inadvertently reveal personal information, such as login credentials, bank account information, and other details.
B) Delivery of the Bait
The attacker makes a fake message and sends it out after figuring out who they want to target. They usually use email, but sometimes they might use messaging apps, calls, or texts. Bait messages will often impersonate a trusted company, colleague, or government institution and appear real, and can also be called “fish”.
Bait messages usually instill some form of urgency and/or fear, for example, a compromised account warning, or some sort of an unpaid invoice with a link or attachment. After clicking on a link in the bait message, the victim may be directed to a fake website to collect login details, or clicking this link may install malware on the victim’s device.
C) Information Theft
The victim may divulge private information if they fall for the trick. This includes security codes, financial information, passwords, and usernames. The attacker escalates additional attacks using this information.
Transfers of money, stealing intellectual property, or access to deeper levels of the organization. In more advanced attacks, the attacker could wait and use the stolen information in stages with no intention of using it until the time is right to escalate the attack.
2. Effective Ways to Stop Phishing Attacks
Since phishing attempts mostly rely on human error, knowledge and intelligent technology are the greatest defenses. Here are some crucial actions you may take to protect your company and yourself.
A) Be Skeptical & Verify Before Clicking
As good practice, go to any unsolicited email or communication with a healthy dose of skepticism. If the message or email contains an urgent call to action, asks for your personal data, or contains amusing links within it, take a break and get your bearings. Look at the sender’s email address (in most cases, the attackers use virtually identical email addresses to the original).
If they do not sound or feel right, do not click on the link. Instead, get in touch with the individual claiming to follow up by way of e-mail or message via official company contact information or the telephone number on their website to confirm the request. When in doubt, rely on your gut feeling. Most phishing attempts result from the victim not taking a moment to suspect the email/message.
B) Implement Advanced Email Security
Since phishing attacks still mostly occur via email, you must have strong email security. Use high-quality threat detection software, anti-virus software, and spam filters to identify questionable emails before they even reach your inbox.
Many email security vendors use AI technology to observe behavioral patterns and identify suspicious activity. These types of security tools can automatically quarantine or block phishing attacks. You are reducing exposure to threats not need the judgment of the end user. Educate your staff to report phishing attacks immediately so that the IT department can respond quickly to resolve the risk.
C) Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
MFA can help when login credentials have been stolen, by giving you another layer to block unauthorized access if those credentials simply won’t work. MFA requires users to provide two or more verification factors in order to gain access to a resource, for example password plus a unique code that is sent to the user’s mobile device.
MFA is a simple way to prevent attackers from taking control, even if they are able to access with the correct username and password. Enable MFA anywhere you can, especially for email accounts, banking, and company systems. It is one of the best protections one could implement for a little cost and effort.
Get Professional Help to Mitigate Phishing Attacks
As a reminder, even the most technically savvy person in the world can fall victim to surprise. But with the appropriate help, you could limit your exposure. With Help AG can stay up to date and authenticate, upgrade your systems, and layer security measures such as MFA and email security. Your best defence against phishing attempts is to be ahead of the hackers.
