Implement The Perfect Practices To Make
Email Phishing Protection Effortless
Your organization’s email system is under constant attack from phishing scams. These scams are designed to trick users into revealing sensitive information, such as passwords or financial information. Phishing attacks can have serious consequences for your organization, including data breaches and financial losses.
You may think that your insurance policies are enough, but statistics indicate:
- A large number of phishing emails pass through the filter.
- At least 4% of phishing emails are opened.
- About 10 % of phishing emails were opened by clicking a malicious link.
- As many as 80,000 people fall prey to email phishing scams every day.
All it takes is one click on one phishing email to compromise your organization's security.
When it comes to email phishing protection, there are a few best practices that every organization should follow. These include awareness training for employees, implementing technical controls, and having a process in place for reporting phishing attempts. By following these best practices, organizations can greatly reduce their risk of falling victim to a phishing attack.
Best practices for phishing protection
1. Strong Policies and Procedures
Your email security policies should include strong procedures and best practices. These should include clear expectations for what employees do with the company and personal email on company devices, such as using strong passwords and changing the passwords regularly. This should include avoiding public Wi-Fi and other robust email safety measures.
It also needs to include steps such as clicking on links or opening attachments from external sources or unknown sources, verifying requests before performing financial transactions or providing sensitive information, and clicking or unsubscribing from suspicious emails
2. Evaluate Your Vulnerabilities
Your IT team can create a simulated phishing e-mail and send it to your staff to see how quickly they detect it and report it to IT. This can be used as a foundation on which to build training.
3. Institute Awareness Training
If and when you develop strict policies, they must be adhered to at all times. You should also regularly enforce training and awareness programs.
That means that more than a third of all reported incidents result directly from human error. Employees usually access e-mail all day, sending a reply, or clicking on a link. It is such an easy matter to click the wrong button when filtered through your filters.
4. Scan Incoming Emails Before They Get to Your Employees
Email scanners are implemented ahead of transmitting emails to your company to spot potential threats and suspicious matters, such as phishing attempts. The right email archiving and quarantine software will identify and understand even the most minute details in fraudulent messages.
5. Include Bold, Unmistakable Warnings in The Body of The Email
Some anti-phishing software will immediately add words like "from [email address] external" following an address in your inbox. Ultimately, these messages end up falling through the cracks, and you can't be held responsible for ignoring or failing to properly review such notifications.
Other providers may use only plain text subject headings with warning messages. These warnings may inadvertently become cut off when viewing emails on a mobile phone or maybe missed when users are quickly scanning messages or keeping their eyes locked on the next email on their screen.
You need a software application with a strong anti-phishing feature that makes bold and glaring warnings in the email's body.
6. Don’t Rely on Blacklists
Whenever a suspicious URL or email address gets identified, it's placed on a so-called blacklist, so that email filters can prevent these email addresses from ever making it through. Google, Exchange, and Office 365 email filters all rely on such blacklists to prevent malicious emails, which is why it's ill-advised to take their favorite anti-phishing application's word for it. Here's the reason why it's up on this matter. Once something is put on the blacklist, cybercriminals can just switch to new Web addresses and email addresses.
You need a solution that is effective against zero-day malware and is not strictly reliant on blacklists for protection. This antimalware solution should be able to identify zero-day threats before they even get on blacklists.
In summary, Phishing attacks have become more sophisticated and harder to detect, making it harder for today's users to recognize phishing emails. Reviewing your organization's current email security practices will help determine if additional security is needed, or if some of your current practices may be outdated.