7 Proven Ways To Fight Against Ever-Evolving Phishing Attacks

Table of Contents

• 1. Prioritize Cybersecurity Training
• 2. Test Your Defenses with Simulated Attacks
• 3. Harness the Power of Artificial Intelligence
• 4. Invest in Prevention Tools
• 5. Limit Access to Critical Asset
• 6. Invest in Endpoint Security
• 7. Keep an Eye on User Behavior
• Conclusion

Cybersecurity attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated and phishing is no exception to this rule. Phishing attacks are one of the most common types of attacks launched by cybercriminals and accounts for nearly 93% of cybersecurity breaches, according to the Akamai report. 

In fact, these attacks are no longer restricted to emails and are expanding into the social domain as well. That does not mean that email phishing attacks is no longer a threat. It means that it is evolving into something even more dangerous and branching out into different domains. Now, hackers target communication, collaboration and productivity apps with phishing attacks and services.

This means that social networking websites and cloud-based services are also at risk of phishing attacks. The increase in attack surface area makes it even more difficult to contain. Modern phishing attacks take advantage of the level of trust a user has on a communication and collaboration platform, which is why they access it regularly.

In this article, you will learn about seven effective ways to protect your business from sophisticated phishing attacks.

1. Prioritize Cybersecurity Training

Most social engineering attacks such as phishing attacks leverages lack of employee awareness and training. As an organization, it is your duty to invest in increasing cybersecurity training of your employees and take measures to build cybersecurity awareness. Launch a cybersecurity awareness and training program that can help them spot these types of attacks. 

Instead of a short temporary program, you should focus on a cybersecurity training program that is consistent. Test the knowledge of your employees when the training program ends. You can also launch mock phishing attacks to see which employees spot the attack and which employees were tricked by a phishing attack.

2. Test Your Defenses with Simulated Attacks

Once the training program is complete, you can test both the knowledge of your employees who are part of the training and awareness program but also the strength of your cybersecurity systems by launching simulated phishing attacks. Moreover, it also gives employees an idea about what a phishing attack looks like so they can easily save themselves from it in the future and don’t get tricked by it. 

When launching a mock attack, make sure you mimic real-life phishing attacks. This will help you evaluate the knowledge of your employees in a real-world scenario. Your simulated attacks should also evolve with the ever-changing cybersecurity industry and must be tailored according to the latest techniques cyber criminals use for phishing attacks.

3. Harness the Power of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is great when it comes to identifying user behaviour and patterns. You can put it to good use to detect threats early. It can also deliver actionable insights to your IT ream, which allows them to respond to phishing attacks more efficiently and in a timely manner.

You can also benefit from machine learning as it is great at identifying trouble patterns from a huge set of unstructured data. What makes machine learning so special is its ability for sniffing vulnerabilities that can easily be ignored by humans. Combine these technologies with tools and cybersecurity team and you can build solid protection against phishing attacks.

4. Invest in Prevention Tools

Most businesses take a reactive approach to cybersecurity which means that they wait for the cybersecurity attack to penetrate their systems and then react, which is not the right way to go about things. Hackers take advantage of this loophole and successfully target businesses. Businesses must change their mindset about cybersecurity and adopt a proactive approach to cybersecurity.

Instead of recovering from a phishing attack, you are better off deploying threat prevention tools. These tools can not only help you track DNS, keep an eye on other data as well as domain registration. This will enable you to block suspicious requests and malicious URLs before it can deliver a malicious payload to your system. By adopting this strategy, you can fend off many other types of attacks as well. As the saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure.” 

5. Limit Access to Critical Asset

Let’s say you have your most critical business data stored in a database or on best dedicated servers on-premises. It is very important to gain visibility and control who have access to your critical business asset. Instead of focusing on protecting all your data, you should divert all your energies towards securing your most critical business assets. Make sure you limit access to unwanted people and only give access to authorized personnel.

6. Invest in Endpoint Security

As the number and types of devices increases and our world become more and more connected, endpoint security will become even more important. With an effective endpoint security strategy and endpoint security tools, you can easily monitor all your endpoints and even fix security issues quickly as soon as they occur. The biggest benefit of using an endpoint security solution is that you can prevent cyber attacks from spreading even if they enter it your system and mitigate their risk.

7. Keep an Eye on User Behavior

If you want to curb phishing attacks, you must monitor user behaviour closely and raise the red flag as soon as you find an unusual behaviour. This way, you can easily detect insider threats along with other suspicious user behaviour. Dip your toes into behaviour analytics and you can quickly see compromised accounts, which will help your security team to act quickly.

Conclusion

If you are serious about protecting your business from cybersecurity attacks such as phishing, focus on increasing your employee awareness and train them on how to spot a phishing attack. Purchase endpoint security solutions and cybersecurity attack prevention tools. Don’t forget to monitor user behaviour as it can help you identify suspicious actions that lead to data breaches and cybersecurity attacks. Lastly, limit access to critical data so only the authorized persons can access it.

How do you protect your business from ever-evolving phishing attacks? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.