How to train employees to recognize phishing
Phishing is a process of tricking people into clicking harmful links, downloading malicious attachments, and opening fake emails. Such actions can install malware or expose sensitive information. Phishing attacks can result in significant financial losses for businesses and damage their reputation.
The most effective line of defense against phishing scams is a team of well-trained employees who can detect and report potential phishing attacks. In this blog post, we will share the most effective methods for training employees to recognize phishing scams.
Main types of phishing attacks
Before we start giving recommendations, it is necessary to understand what kind of phishing attacks employees may face:
- Email phishing: this is a process of sending fake emails that contain malicious links or infected attachments. It is the most common type of phishing attack that often results in installing malware or getting access to sensitive information.
- Smishing (SMS Phishing): attacks conducted via text messages to mobile phones. Scammers often create a sense of urgency, impersonating banks, government agencies, or postal services to encourage users to click a malicious link or call a fraudulent number.
- Social media phishing: attackers use fake social media profiles or customer support accounts to deceive users. They reply to user complaints or posts, directing them to malicious links under the guise of providing assistance or a prize.
- Spear phishing: this is a highly targeted attack on a specific individual or organization. Attackers conduct prior research to create personalized and convincing messages that contain the victim's name, job title, and other personal information to build trust.
- Whaling: a type of spear phishing that specifically targets high-level executives. These attacks are typically more subtle and often involve a request for a large financial transfer or sensitive corporate data, playing on the employee's willingness to follow instructions from a boss.
- Business email compromise: this type of phishing is similar to whaling, but focuses on impersonating an executive (or compromising their email account) to trick employees, vendors, or customers into wiring money to an attacker-controlled bank account.
- Clone phishing: attackers create a near-identical copy ("clone") of a previously delivered, legitimate email and then resend it with a malicious link or attachment that replaces the original, trustworthy content.
How to recognize corporate phishing
Phishing scams are getting harder to spot. Attackers may include personal or company-specific details to make fake messages appear real. Thus, it is important to pay attention to the details:
- Suspicious sender details: misspelled domain names, unfamiliar sender or tone of the message, executive impersonation.
- Unusual content and tone: generic greetings such as "Dear Customer" or "Dear User" are common red flags, together with a sense of urgency, poor spelling and grammar.
- Suspicious links and attachments: before clicking on the link, you can preview the actual destination by hovering your mouse cursor over it. If the URL seems suspicious or does not match the text of the link, it means that's a scam. Be careful with unsolicited attachments, especially those with unusual file types like .zip, .exe, or .js. Do not open unexpected attachments, even if they appear to be standard file types like PDFs or Word documents.
- Requests for sensitive information: legitimate companies will never ask for passwords, credit card numbers, or other sensitive personal information via email.
How to verify phishing
If you notice a suspicious link or a sensitive data request, it is necessary to stay calm and ensure that this is really a phishing attempt. Moreover, after verification, all information should be sent to the security team to prevent such attempts in the future.
To verify that you are facing a phishing attempt, do the following:
- Verify through another channel: if the request looks legitimate but you are still suspicious, use another communication channel to get in touch with the sender and verify whether that person really sent the email. Never reply to such suspicious emails or open attachments.
- Follow company protocols. Adhere strictly to your organization's policies regarding wire transfers, data sharing, and account updates, which should require multi-step verification processes.
- Stay calm and report. Never hurry when you notice a phishing attempt. Stay calm, check everything carefully, and report to the department in charge.
Employee training to recognize phishing
Phishing attacks are targeted toward people who are in a hurry or are not tech-savvy. Thus, it is important to train employees to recognize phishing and create company protocols that will help employees stay professional and prevent phishing attacks.
Keep employees informed
Train employees to watch for red flags such as strange or unexpected requests, urgent language, or suspicious links. Messages may appear to come from known contacts whose accounts were compromised. It is important to explain how to report such cases and to encourage addressing them if any suspicion arises.
Designate an IT professional from your team to track threats and keep employees informed about phishing cases.
Build a phishing awareness culture in your office
It isn't enough to provide one training session since attacks become more and more sophisticated. Thus, it is important to reinforce online security practices regularly and ensure that everyone in your team knows how to report suspicious behavior. One of the ways to keep all your team members regularly updated is to create a communication channel in a team messenger, where admins can post updates and useful tips, and employees can share phishing cases and discuss them with other team members.