7 Ways to Protect Your Small Business from Phishing Attacks

Phishing is simply a way of robbery in which online criminals try to steal sensitive information for financial gains. A phishing attack has proved to be hard to prevent because it just not only uses security flaws of system but it also involves social engineering aspects in other words Phishing attacks are technical as well as socially engineered. Rapid growth of internet users with increasing presence of banking and retail services has resulted in new generation of criminals which use different techniques to Fish for critical information to be used for financial benefits, These Scammers are very knowledgeable and technology guru and know the vulnerabilities of systems, and they use them to ripping people off, steal sensitive information from organization servers. On the other hand normal computer users are not aware of scammers and vulnerable to these people. Phishing attacks are in many ways can be considered as mother of all attacks as in most cases, any hacking attempt at some stage involves phishing emails. Last year’s one of the most known Ransomware attacks also involved delivering malware through emails that later spread to other computers with in same networks.

The problem is much widespread that during 2017, at least 76% organizations suffered phishing attacks in different forms. These attacks resulted in different types of losses and damages like loss of productivity, loss of reputation, data loss, and virus/ransomware infection etc. The total costs goes up to billions of dollars every years making it essential for every business to not only understand the anatomy of these types of email attacks but take proactive measures to guard themselves from these types of attacks.

At Whitehats, we offer Anitvirus/Antispam solutions in Dubai, that will help you to control spam email effectively.

Here is how your business and employees should deal with this emerging threat.

• Implement AntiPhising Procedures. It is essential that every company has proper mechanism for handling Phishing email attacks. This should be checked and updated regularly to keep them updated. It should be part of overall information security plan but should include the way company should respond to such incidents.

• Report Suspicious Activities. All the employees should be thought that whenever they find any such email, immediately report it to IT department as early as possible.

• Stay Alert of Suspicious Emails. Often curious users end up opening emails that are suspicious and loaded with malware. Employees should be tough to stay alert from such emails.

• Use AntiSpam Software.  Well most of the business email solutions offers spam protection, you should make sure that you have implemented the right AntiSpam solutions It will detect spam/phishing emails. However sometimes you may still receive phishing emails in your emails box, therefore user vigilance is the key.

Beside all technical anti phishing solutions user must be careful about his behavior and should follow following best practices both proactively and reactively.

• User Vigilance. User vigilance is most important in combating the phishing attacks, vigilance and aware user is hard phish, as according to  experts today stress that “vigilance is the best defense against phishing attack while user should always be suspicious about his personal account keeps a close check on his bank statement”

• Regular Proactive Actions. User should periodically update his antivirus and anti-malware software in order to control new type of threats

• Computer should be schedules on automatic scan on daily or weekly basis so that any threats inside the computer should be detected and eliminated

• User should update his information about latest phishing threats so that he can act accordingly

• User should be very careful when using social networking website that he is not exposing his correct and private information to anyone. User should also be very careful about using internet messengers and chat rooms to don’t click any links provided by some un known person,

• User should be careful about installing any new unknown software which can also install malware in his computer.

• Reactive actions on being targeted.

If user is being targeted and have been sent phishing email or attachments he should take following actions.

• User should avoid opening any emails from unknown sender and unknown places

• User should not open any attachments unless he knows what is inside the attachment usually malwares are sent with in attachments which activate as you open attachment

• User should not fill any forms sent in email and asking any private information

• User should visit any hyperlinks given in an email, which may be part of fake website or download malicious contents on user computer.

Are you worried about the security of your critical information? Do contact us for free advice and assessment. Whitehats offers wide range of IT security solutions that include IT Auditing solution in Dubai, Antivirus/AntiSpam solutions in Dubai and Network Security Solutions.