Phishing Prevention Tactics to Keep Your Organization Secure
Phishing attacks occur when a threat actor sends a malicious link or attachment to a recipient, often via text or email. Once clicked, malware can be deployed onto the device, potentially harvesting credentials or exfiltrating data. Phishing attacks can even involve email spoofing, which tricks the recipient into believing the email was sent from a trusted email address (e.g., a manager). A successful phishing attack can risk an organization's data, finances, and reputation. According to AAG IT Security, nearly half of the emails sent in 2022 were spam, and the average cost of a data breach against an organization is more than $4M; this makes phishing attacks a very common, real, and costly threat to organizations.
It only takes one employee falling for a phishing attack for an organization to incur serious damages. This means that it is up to the organization to instill proper practices in its employees to prevent a phishing attack from succeeding. The following procedures are essential best practices to safeguard sensitive information and prevent cyber threats.
Enforce employee phishing awareness
Whether a phishing attempt is successful largely depends on the actions of each individual employee. Employees must be well-informed about how to identify phishing attempts and how to report them.
- Organizations should mandate regular cybersecurity training (quarterly, annual) for employees, particularly those that handle sensitive information regularly, to combat this threat.
- Phishing awareness training should include how to identify suspicious emails, the dangers of clicking unknown links or downloading attachments, common phishing techniques and social engineering tactics, and best practices for verifying sender identities).
Implement external email warning tags
Another method to help employees identify phishing attempts would be to implement external email warning tags. External email warning tags notify the email recipient that the email was not sent from an internal email address. Any time a threat actor attempts to spoof someone's email address; the employee realizes that the email was not sent internally and that they must be the recipient of an email spoofing attempt.
- Inform employees of the possibility of email address spoofing, where a threat actor may make their email address appear to be a trusted contact (e.g., a coworker). External email warnings notify the employee that an email was sent from an external contact. If an employee receives an email, they believe it to be from a trusted source but is flagged as external, it is suggested that the employee validate the email by giving the sender a phone call or asking them about the email in person.
- Although an email may really look legitimate, trust the warning tag over your own assumptions about the origins of the email.
- Even if you do not see an external email warning tag, if you believe the email is malicious or is pretending to be someone else, it is best to report it.
- Do not click on links or download attachments from external emails unless you are completely confident in the validity of the sender and the link.
- Report suspicious emails following company procedures.
Inform employees about how to report phishing
While it is important for employees to be able to identify phishing attempts, it is equally as important that employees know how to properly report them. Reporting phishing attempts makes the appropriate parties aware of the situation so that technical teams can address the situation and contain a potential phishing campaign. Reporting a phishing attempt also allows for messages and alerts to be sent out to other employees if necessary.
- Make sure employees are aware of the various avenues they can take to properly report a potential phishing attempt (e.g., emailing IT, calling the Help Desk, etc.).
- Encourage employees to proactively report emails if they are unsure whether they are phishing attempts; explain that it is better to err on the side of caution than to fall for a phishing attack.
- Remind employees not to click on any links or reply to the email. Engaging with the threat actor in any way presents a risk to the organization.
- If an employee believes that he or she may have clicked on a suspicious link or email, he or she should report the incident.
Use phishing reporting features, if applicable
Phishing reporting features provide a quick and easy way for employees to report potential phishing attempts. These features are often implemented as a button. When employees click this button, it can quickly check to see if the email is legitimate.
- Integrate a button, if possible, for employees to automatically report and check potential phishing attempts. One example is the Phish Alert button in Microsoft Outlook – make sure employees are aware of this button and encourage employees to use it even if they aren’t sure if it is a phishing attempt, as any clean emails will return to their inbox.
Encourage self-reporting
Self-reporting allows employees to report incidents to the necessary parties so that they can be investigated and contained as soon as possible. Encourage employees to report incidents via the appropriate channels if they believe they may have clicked on a suspicious link, downloaded a suspicious attachment, or otherwise compromised their data or fell for a social engineering attack.
- Establish a means of anonymous reporting, if possible, so that employees feel comfortable reporting all incidents regardless of who is involved, including themselves.
Send out phishing tests regularly
Phishing tests allow the organization to identify which employees may be more susceptible to a phishing attack. This is important as it can highlight where the organization may need to focus on improving training. This makes the organization less susceptible to falling for a real phishing attack.
- Create believable phishing tests that are relevant to the company and that employees are likely to believe. This means creating emails that are relevant to the company itself and demonstrate a general understanding of the organization, its departments, and how the organization is run.
- Identify susceptible employees. If an employee has repeatedly fallen for a phishing attack, mandate more extensive security training and consider coordinating a meeting to discuss the importance of phishing awareness and to remind the employee of phishing best practices.
- Mandate additional security training. Make sure that all of the employees who fell for the phishing test undergo additional security training. These trainings should be comprehensive in explaining how phishing attacks can cause damage to the organization, how to identify phishing attacks, and how to report them.
Phishing attacks are the most common form of cybercrime with billions of spam emails sent every day. Fortunately, organizations can combat these attacks by enforcing phishing awareness training, using external email warning tags and phish alert buttons, implementing clear reporting procedures, and conducting phishing tests. By following procedures and security training, employees can help protect the organization from external cyber threats and phishing attacks.
At Echelon Risk + Cyber, we provide expert-driven cybersecurity solutions to help you stay ahead of evolving threats. Visit our services page to learn how we can strengthen your security posture today.