We’ve all received suspicious-looking emails or text messages prompting us to click mysterious links. Sometimes they promise free money or tell us a package you never ordered has tracking information that needs reviewing. Whatever the circumstance, scam messages are a significant issue with today’s technology.
Phishing is an issue that’s become a broader, more problematic occurrence for businesses in recent years. 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent out every day worldwide, according to AAG-IT. This can lead to data breaches, the most common cause being stolen credentials gathered through phishing. But what exactly does phishing entail, and how can it be prevented?
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a cybercrime involving scammers/criminals seeking sensitive information from unaware end users. Typically, cybercriminals will try to collect sensitive information primarily by sending emails posing as different entities and reasons to gain access to passwords, login information, financial information, etc. They will send out links through their emails that prompt users to click on them and update their passwords. When that happens, it sends the password to the malicious actor.
Sometimes, these scammers send invoices to companies posing as trusted vendors. However, it will look slightly different than an actual invoice you typically receive, and they will prompt you to wire transfer money. These criminals don’t care who they affect. They only care about getting the money one way or another and gaining access to private information.
What are Phishing Simulators?
Phishing simulators are precisely as they sound. They are simulations of an organized effort by the security team of an IT company to help clients like you know what to look out for and how to react to phishing attempts. It’s meant to be an educational training exercise to combat cyber threats. The IT company will send similar phishing-type emails to workers of a company. Typical phishing messages prompt users to click links and enter their login name and password, so the simulators copy the same idea.
Depending on what the user does, your IT company will store reports of what users did when sent phishing simulation emails. It’ll keep whether users opened the email but didn’t click the link, or if they did click the link but didn’t enter their passwords, and vice versa. If a user did enter their username and password, that would be visible to the security team. These simulations are helpful and can be used to help educate and train users. After all, the biggest threat to your network isn’t firewalls or patches; it’s your employees themselves.
If your employees are not properly educated and versed on detecting phishing or cyber threats in general, they can be your weakest link. This transitions to the second part of the whole phishing simulation process, which is security awareness, which is recommended to be performed every month. This will help increase preparation and awareness against phishing and help build a stronger, more secure team.
Usherwood Strives to Motivate and Educate Our Clients
Part of Usherwood’s core security concept is building a campaign with phishing awareness and training. We’re helping our clients by making them aware of today’s trickiest threats and that there are ways to combat them. Even if you’ve been lucky enough not to have had any security concerns thus far, it will inevitably happen, so it’s best to be prepared. Not being prepared for cyber threats is like driving a car without insurance. There may be a time when your luck runs out.
We at Usherwood want to do our best to educate and inform our clients how to protect themselves and their sensitive information best. We strongly believe in the pre-emptive approach of including phishing simulations as part of our services for every managed IT client we serve. Does the maintenance worker know about phishing threats? Does the CEO? Any facet of an organization could be affected, thus why we’ve made it our mission to properly educate clients.
We have the answers to your cybersecurity concerns and a whole team of members here to teach others about security awareness. If you’re concerned about phishing threats or would like to better educate your team on protecting sensitive information, take the step and work with Usherwood to bring awareness and build a more robust and secure business.