Take Phishing Training Seriously As Phishing Attacks Surge

As Phishing Attacks Surge, It’s Important to Take Phishing Training Seriously

Technology is constantly improving to secure your sensitive data, making it a game of cat and mouse between cybersecurity firms and hackers. People, on the other hand, are much easier to trick, and bad actors know this. That’s why they often target people, knowing the success rate is much higher than trying to bypass a security system.

During the first half of 2023, people and businesses have embraced generative AI like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. And it’s no surprise, as it takes the busy work out of creating content. However, bad actors also are using these tools to craft more legitimate-looking emails to dupe users into revealing sensitive data.

In that same time frame, email-based phishing attacks increased by 464% compared to 2022, according to a biannual threat report by Acronis.

The report also noted that of all attacks reported:

73% were phishing scams
15% were social engineering/business email compromises
11% were malware
1% were advanced attacks

“It’s easy to click a weird-looking email to want more information, but you and your employees need to be skeptical about anything that looks out of the ordinary.”

How Can I Protect My Organization?

Ensure your employees are properly trained in how to spot phishing scams. All it takes is one employee to click a bad link, allowing hackers to infiltrate your entire network.

As noted in the threat report, bad actors are getting more sophisticated with their emails, so it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between a legitimate email and a phishing attack.

Generally with phishing scams, there is a sense of urgency or the content is shocking or too good to be true to entice you to click a link or attachment. We outlined more clues to look out for when you’re unsure whether an email is legitimate, but a good rule of thumb is to never reply with personal or financial information over email or through links in emails unless you are 100% certain it’s from a legitimate source.

It’s easy to click a weird-looking email to want more information, but you and your employees need to be skeptical about anything that looks out of the ordinary.

Another thing to be wary of is constant multifactor authentication (MFA) requests, also known as MFA prompt bombing. Bad actors do this when they have your username and password, hoping you’ll accept and let them in your account to make the prompts disappear.

We’ve stressed the importance of implementing MFA and how it enhances your organization’s security. However, as more logins utilize MFA, people become numb to the prompts and accept them without thinking.

Never accept an MFA prompt you didn’t initiate. Sometimes an unexpected MFA prompt isn’t an attack, but if you want to be extra cautious, consider changing your password and contacting your IT department.

Of course, training your employees to spot phishing scams and implementing MFA are two ways to improve security. The ideal cybersecurity solution should be multilayered and includes tools that help you protect your data, detect and respond to an attack, and, if necessary, restore from backup.