Phishing Attack Simulations and Effective Preventative Measures

Fortification of Your Human Cyber Defenses. The explanation of new and old ways of phishing attacks and recommendations for effective measures to prevent them

Phishing Attack Simulations - Fortification of Your Human Cyber DefensesWhy should you take phishing seriously?

Phishing is a cyber threat that anyone can utilize. You don’t need to be a proficient hacker to gain access to a reasonably secure information system. All you need to know is how to use Internet search engines to find a working toolkit, a webserver, and a bit of research. The effects of such a threat can be devastating.

Phishing is a social engineering technique that uses psychological manipulation and deception to coerce someone into performing a certain action that is not in their (or their employer’s) best interest. Phishing involves malicious actors sending well-crafted emails that urge the recipient to click on an link in the body of an email, which can redirect them to a fraudulent website designed to steal login credentials, credit card information, etc. In some cases, the threat actors attach documents containing malicious macros that may drop malware on the recipient’s machine.

Despite phishing being included in just about every Employee Cybersecurity Awareness Training, employee awareness appears to remain insufficient as many employees remain unprepared to identify a phishing attempt and react properly – resulting in employee behavior that jeopardizes businesses. This may be the due to the following:

  • Maturity of companies’ awareness programs is stagnating
  • Awareness programs lack testing and measuring
  • Content is not presented in compelling and captivating manner
  • Majority of users never experienced a phishing attack so there’s no immediate experience
  • Companies are not updating the content of their programs to prepare employees to identify the latest phishing methods

Dealing with phishing attacks presents various technical challenges. However, since these attacks are exploiting  human vulnerability, there is only so much you can do on a technical level. Even with company efforts to deploy firewalls, anti-malware solutions, network segmentation, and patching/updating, adversaries can circumvent these controls and choose the path of least resistance. There is no technical security patch for human vulnerability yet. That’s why the organizational, procedural and process controls are still the most effective solutions.

Remediation.
Our team will follow up by conducting an audit of the entire email system to help identify gaps in your security. We will examine email use within your organization for a period of time and based on the results collected and our own experience we will set up filters, whitelists, and blacklists to prevent common and advanced (targeted) email attacks on your organization.
Many businesses have technology in place capable of providing reasonably good email security. We will evaluate and fine-tune your existing technology to provide optimal security for email communication. We ensure that all security controls in place are properly configured and functioning optimally.
Even with the most advanced technology in place, the human factor should not be underestimated. A well-educated and vigilant workforce plays a crucial role in preventing advanced social engineering attacks, including email attacks. Our Cyber Resiliency Experts will train your employees with real examples from the assessment stage to demonstrate the threat and importance of being prepared.

To Learn more About Our Phishing Attack Simulation Solution, Contact One of Our Cyber Resiliency Experts Today!

Download white paper to learn about effective measures to prevent phishing attack

 

Image by Umar Khan