Phishing happens when an attacker pretends to be a genuine user during online communication. Emails are the most commonly used vessels to deliver phishing apps. It is much easier for a target to click on a link embedded in an email than to do other complicated tasks. You can learn about the advanced technologies for data protection, on this website: www.techiance.net
Anti-phishing technology offers a superior way to prevent attacks or block them if a user decides to click on a link unknowingly. The solution mostly stops phishing links and attachments in emails from ever finding their way into a user’s inbox. It scans every email before it enters the user’s inbox and if it finds a phishing email, it stops it up front and never allows it to reach the user.
What is anti-phishing?
A report by Earth Web shows email users in the world receive about 3.4 billion phishing emails daily. Phishing is classified as a leading method used by cybercriminals to launch attacks. The emails look genuine from genuine sources. Once opened or their link is clicked, the malicious software starts working and gathers the information it was developed to collect.
There has been increased awareness about how to prevent phishing attacks. Unfortunately, cybercriminals devise new ways all the time. Earth Web shows at least 50% of all emails sent in 2021 contained phishing links or attachments. Phishing email attacks account for 94% of all cyberattacks done through emails. This shows how serious the issue is and how serious taking protective measures should be.
One of the best solutions to block phishing emails is to use anti-phishing technology. It helps block the access of sensitive data by attackers who send phishing emails. There is a broad range of services that help mitigate malicious emails designed to steal user data.
Impact of phishing on a business
Most phishing attacks seek to gain important information from users that can help attackers get monetary benefits from them. They try every way to help them gain access to company details, passwords, and personal data. Recently, phishing attacks have become more complicated, posing greater dangers to organizations. A company could suffer any of these damages.
- Disruption of business operations: A phishing email can lead to an attack on the company’s daily operations system. This might lead to a slow system that affects the speed of running a business. Some attacks might affect the company website and lead to an extended business interruption. This is one of the reasons IT experts insist on the importance of website testing to ensure there are no security gaps.
- Damage to business reputation: No matter how small or serious a phishing attack can be, its news spreads fast across users. It causes panic, and customers could lose trust in the organization. A recent phishing report where Russian hackers attacked British Airways systems and sold 245,000 credit card information will take longer to forget.
- Companies lose value: Data breaches quickly affect customer confidence, and they may decide to react in different ways. Some companies lose their stock value by large margins.
- Loss from fines: Many companies are fined heavily due to phishing data losses. In 2020, British Airways lost $22.7 billion in fines because the company lost data for 400,000 customers due to a data breach.
How do anti-phishing solutions work?
A report by APWG Phishing Activity Trends shows the second 4 months in 2022 recorded 1,097,811 phishing breaches. According to the report, there has not been a worse attack than this before. During this period, the most affected business sectors were:
- Financial organizations – 27.6% of all attacks
- Webmail and SaaS provide – 19.1% of all attacks
- Social media platforms combined – 15.3%
- Payment gateways solutions providers – 6.3%
- Online retailers and e-commerce platforms – 5.6%
- Cryptocurrency platforms and accounts – 4.5%
Great precaution is needed when opening emails from suspicious accounts. Unfortunately, it is difficult to know if some emails are genuine or not. Using anti-phishing solutions is the best way to identify potential threats and prevent them. The solutions work in different ways.
It scans all incoming emails: The easiest way for cybercriminals to find their way into a system is to send emails with malicious links and attachments. The better approach to stop this is to prevent such emails from getting into a user’s inbox. The software scans the emails before they get into the inbox. If it finds any suspicious email, it is prevented from being delivered to the inbox.
Blocking malicious URLs: When surfing websites, it is possible for users to accidentally open a malicious URL that can infect a website or computer system. This can happen when there are third parties allowed to access the company system. The anti-phishing software scans all URLs ensuring nothing harmful is opened or loaded into the system.
Sending into quarantine: Sometimes, important emails can be prevented and marked as harmful by the phishing tool. The latest tools have advanced features that effectively separate junk emails from important ones. The smart quarantine feature is designed for this purpose.
Blocking threats on mobile devices: The anti-phishing tools are designed to work on both computers and mobile devices. Whether users access their inboxes or browse from their mobile phones, the tools will get rid of all vulnerabilities that attackers can take advantage of.
Blocking unauthorized spoofing: Attackers may decide to impersonate a domain name of a company to maliciously obtain information. The anti-phishing tool algorithms have been trained to detect real and impersonated websites. The tool adds extra features that help protect the website. If a spoofing attempt is successful, an attacker can hijack all email communications with customers and direct them to the fake website.
It is compatible with any type of email platform: A phishing tool is mostly a plug-and-play tool that can work with any type of email server. There is no need to restructure the server to accommodate the anti-phishing tool.
Conclusion
Anti-phishing solutions are AI-powered automated solutions that work in the background 24/7. Once launched, it begins working instantly, providing email and website protection in real time. It works perfectly in the entire company system and will disrupt phishing emails and malicious URLs, whether online or offline.
