Phishing Awareness – Important Things That Every Employee Needs To Know In An Organization

Of all the measures and precautions an organization takes to keep its assets and data safe and secure, phishing awareness training should be at the top of the list. Phishing has grown into a global threat that an organization anywhere failing to invest in a phishing awareness campaign becomes a victim in no time.

The main reason that phishing has snowballed to its current proportions is that it is effortless to be pulled off. However, most companies learn the importance of phishing awareness the hard way and realize only after becoming a victim.

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What Is Phishing Awareness?

Phishing awareness is not only about knowing the definition of phishing but employees in an organization need to be trained about:

The various kinds of phishing attacks
What a phishing email looks like
How to respond to emails that request personal information
How it could affect the organization, and, in turn, the employees
Recent instances of phishing attacks and how it cost millions for organizations around the world

Employees also need to be taught about how to respond and report potential phishing attacks immediately to the internal security teams. Immediate reporting will help security teams to alert other employees and contain the threat to a great extent.

Why Is Phishing Awareness Training So Important?

A straightforward and simple answer to this question is that organizations that ignore phishing awareness programs will be prone to becoming victims to phishing scams and losing confidential information.
Take a look at the phishing statistics to get the complete picture about why enterprises around the world are investing a lot of money on phishing awareness template.

1 out of 25 branded emails is a phishing email.
Phishing attacks have targeted almost 76% of organizations.
Nearly 80-90% of data breaches involve phishing attacks.
Compared to 2018, phishing scams have increased by a staggering 65%.
Every month around 1.5m new phishing websites are created.
Almost 30% of phishing emails get opened by the targeted victims.
According to an IBM statistic, the average data breach caused due to a phishing attack is estimated to be $3.8 million.
58% of phishing websites use SSL certificates to deceive people.
Malware is found in almost 51% of phishing emails.

What Does A Phishing Awareness Training Consist Of?

Simulated phishing attacks applied regularly are the best way for organizations to raise awareness among employees about phishing. It is also essential for security teams to create selective simulated attacks. It is vital to design personalized email attacks like spear-phishing attacks to see how employees respond.

Internal security teams can provide phishing awareness tips through phishing awareness training Powerpoint and phishing training pdf files to the employees. Moreover, informative emails using an appropriate phishing awareness email template can also be sent from time to time. Training programs need to make sure that every employee in the organization completely understands the common traits seen in phishing emails that include:

Wrong Sender’s Address

Most of the fraudulent phishing emails that try to deceive people appear to have been sent from a trusted source. Hence, it is essential to double-check the senders’ addresses before replying to the emails or download any attachments from them.

Urgency Factor

One of the common tactics employed by cybercriminals around the world is to create a sense of urgency in the minds of users. Most of these phishing emails come with content that asks the recipient to act upon immediately. This urgency denies the time for the recipients to take adequate caution and make them fall into the trap laid by phishers.

Generic Greetings

While spear-phishing email attacks are mainly targeted on individuals, other prevalent phishing emails come with a “spray and pray” approach. Phishing emails are sent to several recipients, and hence cannot contain a specific greeting with the individual’s name, but only a generic greeting like “Hello”, “Hi” etc.

Fraudulent Links

Phishing awareness programs need to ensure that employees understand the consequences behind clicking a fraudulent URL. Employees need to be aware of it, and they should hover over the link to see if it takes them to the intended URL.

How To Maximize Phishing Security Awareness?

To get the maximum results from the security awareness training, the training needs to include various other features in addition to targeted simulated phishing attacks. Feedback from employees can help the internal security teams to learn about the effectiveness of the training programs and make improvements accordingly. Organizations must implement easy to use reporting systems and a dedicated team to handle phishing attack reports immediately.

Feedback is not only essential from employees but security teams as well. Internal security teams can send simulated phishing emails and security awareness email to employees and provide feedback on how every employee handled the simulated attacks, what went wrong, how to improvise, etc.

MORE: Phishing Awareness Quizlet

Conclusion

Prevention is better than cure, and it applies fully to phishing attacks. Enterprises need to create dedicated internal security teams to conduct, monitor, and analyze phishing awareness training programs to safeguard themselves from phishing attacks. Each individual in the organization, from the CEO to the junior-most employee must share the responsibility to avoid becoming a victim of a phishing scam.