By Angela Violet
Cybersecurity Intern
South-End Tech Limited
Phishing attacks are the most common and dangerous cyber threats facing businesses today. In a phishing attack, a hacker will send an email or message that appears to be from a legitimate source (such as a bank or website). The message will usually contain a link leading to a fake website that looks identical to the original website. Fake websites are used by fraudsters to trick users into entering their personal or financial information. The hacker can then use the personal details to steal their identity or commit fraud. Phishing takes many forms such as;
1. Email phishing
Most phishing attacks occur via email. The crook will register a fake domain that mimics a genuine organization and sends thousands of generic requests. The fake domain often involves character substitution, like using ‘r’ and ‘n’ next to each other to create ‘rn’ instead of ‘m’. In other cases, the fraudsters create a unique domain that includes the legitimate organization’s name in the URL.
2. Smishing and vishing
With both smishing and vishing, telephones replace emails as a method of communication. Smishing involves criminals sending text messages (the content of which is much the same as with email phishing), and vishing involves a telephone conversation. One of the most common smishing pretexts is messages supposedly from your bank alerting you to suspicious activity.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a single silver bullet solution to email security. We recommend taking a multi-layered approach to your phishing defense, by implementing a range of both technical and human-centric solutions such as:
- Secure email gateway
- Monitor employees’ inbound and outbound emails scanning them for malicious content.
- Cloud Email Security
- Sit within your email network itself and monitor all inbound, outbound, and internal communications for malicious content.
- Security awareness training
- Training the employees of your business as they form the most critical part of cybersecurity defense strategy.
South End Tech creates security awareness through training employees as they form a critical part of the cybersecurity defense strategy.
