Multi-Layered Approach For Robust Phishing Protection
Phishing scams are the most widespread and pernicious attacks which are becoming sophisticated by the day. Today, cybercriminals are targeting employees, as well as the high-value individuals in the organizations which have privileged access to sensitive information. As adversaries enhance the scope and sophistication of these attacks, it is prudent for businesses to deploy the best cybersecurity practices.
Phishing Attack Definition
In simple words, a phishing attack is an attempt to steal sensitive and personal information through ambiguous and malicious e-mails or websites. Hackers carry out these attacks to steal the victim’s personal data or credit card information for financial gain. Additionally, adversaries use phishing e-mails to install the malware on the victim’s machine. For targeting a specific company, hackers obtain employee login information and other details to carry out an advanced attack. Therefore, it is necessary for individual users and organizations to identify phishing attacks and to learn phishing prevention techniques.
MORE: How to Protect against Phishing
Phishing Protection Techniques
Just one click on a wrong link can compromise all your sensitive data. There is no single cybersecurity technology which can effectively prevent phishing attacks. Thus, as a phishing protection measure, organizations and individuals must take a multi-layered approach to lessen the number of phishing attacks and reduce their impact. So, how to avoid phishing? It is an amalgamation of steps including training, malware protection, e-mail and web security, and access control.
Inbox Protection
E-mails are the most common vectors of phishing attacks. For robust phishing attack prevention, there is a need to stop phishing e-mails from entering the user’s inbox. To avoid malicious e-mails from entering the inbox, users can use spam filters. Most of the anti-phishing security software provides phishing protection to both computers as well as mobile phones. These programs are efficient enough to automatically initiate the scanning process to detect any suspicious links and attachments and prevent any mischievous e-mail from passing the security firewall. These phishing solutions keep on releasing updates and patches, keeping in line with the evolving threat scenario. Hence, users must update them regularly to thwart the latest cyber threats.
Keeping A Check On The Web Traffic
Cybercriminals use social networking sites as a vector to launch phishing campaigns. They exploit the security loopholes whenever employees open their accounts from their work computers. For phishing protection, it is advisable to keep a check on any access attempts made by the employees to social networking sites while working on the organization’s network. Investing in high priced anti-phishing solutions will be a waste if the attackers can get access to the organization’s data because of a click made by the employees on a Facebook ad.
Training The Employees And Raising Phishing Awareness
Majority of data breaches are on account of a human error. One wrong click by an employee and the whole organization is at risk. Therefore, to prevent phishing, it is necessary for an organization to raise phishing awareness among the employees. They must be trained to know what is phishing and identify phishing attacks, understand various phishing threats, learn social engineering tactics used by the hackers to handle such type of attacks and to counter these learn how to implement phishing prevention best practices.
Multi-Factor Authentication
When it comes to phishing prevention, multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to counter any cyber attack. It is like adding an extra layer of defense to the security systems. This authentication process consists of two components:
- One part is “Something That The User Knows”: This part includes username and password, which the user knows.
- Another part is “Something That The User Has”: This part consists of components that are specific to the user only, like fingerprint, retina, or face scan.
Even if the cyber attackers get access to the username and password, they cannot enter the organization’s systems as they are missing the other part.
Using Secure HTTPS
The links sent by adversaries are not secured. It is always recommended to use secured websites for browsing, i.e., websites which start with https:// and possess the lock icon in the address bar of the browser. Before submitting any sensitive information, these two things must always be checked to ensure the security of data. Additionally, one must refrain from using public or unsecured Wi-Fi networks while doing any online banking transactions. Submitting personal information or shopping using debit or credit cards are other red-lines for open networks.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, there is no full-proof solution to prevent phishing attacks. A multi-pronged approach can help in minimizing the risk. Using the tactics as mentioned above for phishing protection, one can prevent their enterprise from becoming a victim of phishing or cyber-attacks.
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