Phishing protection is more essential than ever as the attack method remains the most prevalent tool in a hacker’s arsenal. Some estimates state that Google alone blocks around 100 million phishing emails every day. Many more find their way into business inboxes across the country.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a scam where attackers send emails designed and structured to trick people into revealing financial information, system credentials, or other sensitive data. During a phishing attempt, attackers impersonate a reputable organization, or person, in order to mislead the unaware.
While email is the most common vehicle for phishing attacks, there are several other types that businesses should be aware of, such as Whaling, Vishing or Smishing.
- Whaling: Whaling is a type of spear phishing attack that targets high-profile victims like CEOs or CFOs. The attacks are highly personalized to help make them more convincing. Snapchat was a victim of whaling in 2016. An employee responded to an email that appeared to be from the CEO, handing over payroll information.
- Vishing: Vishing is a phishing attack done over the phone using a fake caller ID. Vishing scammers impersonate people from legitimate organizations like banks to trick victims into giving up sensitive information. For example, a 2022 vishing attack involved a major U.S. telecommunications company employee. The hackers gained access by having the employee bypass the company's multi-factor authentication protocols.
- Smishing: Smishing is a phishing attack through SMS messages. Victims are lured into clicking on a phishing link or tricked into giving up personal data such as logins or financial information. For example, a recent smishing attack involved text messages claiming to be from the U.S. Postal Service about a package delivery delay with a link to click.
How to Avoid Phishing Attacks
Educational efforts have been effective in curtailing the effects of phishing attacks. When people know some of the common traits found in most types of phishing schemes they are better able to identify them and avoid them. Some organizations now even conduct internal testing to see if their employees can recognize phishing when they see it. Phishing, no matter the type, will often have discernible markers that make them easier to identify.
- Asks for sensitive information
- Contains links that don’t match the sending domain
- Includes unsolicited attachments
- Is generic, or not personalized
- Has poor spelling and grammar
- Tries to induce panic — “I need this NOW”
However, those efforts have not been enough to instill peace of mind in business owners. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 300,497 reports from victims of phishing in 2022. Business Email Compromise, a phishing variant, cost U.S. victims more than $2.7 billion last year alone. Research from Deloitte found that 91% of all cyberattacks begin with a phishing email to an unsuspecting victim. Further, 32% of all successful data breaches involved the use of phishing techniques.
Clearly, more support for phishing protection is needed.
Ready to Dive Deeper? Arnet Technologies eliminates worries surrounding IT management and support, cybersecurity, compliance, and more. Connect with us today for a free consultation.
Get Greater Phishing Protection with Graphus
Graphus is an automated email security platform that provides an additional security layer, and one that integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and scan incoming emails, providing phishing protection that doesn’t rely on users knowing the signs of a phony message from a hacker.
How It Works
Graphus uses AI to create trusted profiles based on how employees communicate with business contacts. It then seeks out irregularities, compared to the trusted profiles, in message content and attachments. With no hardware components or software to download, Graphus depends on three pillars to safeguard your inbox.
TrustGraph® — This is the patented AI technology that analyzes both historical and real-time communication patterns between people, devices, and networks. It automatically detects and quarantines malicious emails by pulling them out of all infected inboxes — even Zero-Day attacks it hasn’t encountered before.
Employee Shield® — This alert places an interactive warning banner at the top of the email that allows users to quarantine — or mark the message as safe — with a single click.
Phish911(™) — While Employee Shield is the active alert, Phish911 allows employees to proactively quarantine and report suspicious and unwanted emails for IT or admin to investigate further.
Improved Protection From Phishing Attacks
Quick and Easy Installation — With a streamlined configuration process, protection can start in minutes with cloud API integration.
No Email Delay — Because messages are analyzed in real-time, there is no delay in delivery to your inbox. Safe messages are never quarantined.
Detects Zero-Day Attacks — Unlike a Secure Email Gateway (SEG) that relies on proven bad URLs to filter out potential attacks, the TrustGraph algorithm processes and detects potential new attacks based on real-time data collection.
Automated Defense — Graphus integrates at the API level to detect social engineering attacks, automatically, based on historical data and trusted profiles.
Visual Alerts — Impossible-to-miss warnings make identifying phishing attacks easier for every employee, and give them an immediate action point to handle them.
Arnet Technologies Provides Phishing Protection and Complete IT Support
For more than a decade, Arnet Technologies has offered businesses in Ohio assistance in managing all their IT needs, complete with simplified, clear pricing and exceptional customer service. An extensive line of managed cybersecurity offerings gives you coverage every day of every week, whether that is improving your phishing protection with new products like Graphus or complete managed detection and response oversight of your network and endpoints.
Cybersecurity is but one aspect of managed IT that we address. Whether it is consulting to roadmap your technology future, optimizing ideal cloud computing solutions, or devising perfect-fit backup and recovery plans, Arnet Technologies always acts as an extension of your organization to improve your IT infrastructure.
Arm your business with phishing protection you can count on. Connect with our team today to learn more about how we make technology work for you.
