Anti-Phishing Techniques for Your Business

Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain personal information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. … Phishing emails may contain links to websites that download malware such as keyloggers or a crypto virus.

An example of a phishing email.

Two important steps in ensuring that your team avoid phishing emails are:

1. Conducting awareness training.  Webroot have a great Security awareness program that sends out monthly emails disguised as phishing emails which link in with education and reporting so that you can see the sucess of the training.  Sign up today for a free trial of the Webroot Security Awareness Training program.
2. Proper Anti Virus software.  Too many times we see new customers suffering from a crypto or phishing scam and they either have no antivirus, or their free software hasn’t caught the malware.  We recommend Webroot because it doesn’t slow down your computer and it is highly effective at keeping your computer safe.  You can sign up for a free trial here. 
3. AV software doesn’t catch every virus, which is why we recommend a unified threat management gateway – a router that also scans for spam, viruses and malware.

These 3 steps dramatically decrease your chances of being the victim of a phishing attack.

Some tips to avoid dodgy emails are:

1. Check the email for –
   • Sender – do you expect an email from this person or company?
   • Check the spelling and grammar.  Often emails are sent from overseas, so it may not be written correctly.
   • Check the format of the email.  If it is from someone that you normally get emails, is it in the same format?
   • Is the attachment in the email the right kind for the email?
   • Does the content of the email seem valid?
   • Check the links.  Mouse over before clicking.
   • If in doubt call the sender.  Don’t reply to the email.
   • Use proper Anti Virus software.  Much of the free software does not work very well.  We use and recommended Webroot.  we have over 1,000 PCs and desktops protected with Webroot.
   • Use a router that also scans emails for spam, phishing and viruses.  No software will get every dodgy email, and neither will any router, so having the 2 in combination can help.
   • Have you mail filtered.
   • Run security awareness training.  We can organise to send an email to everyone in your company once a month with dodgy links.  If they click on the link, they are sent to a page with further education on what phishing emails look like.  Training is much better than fixing the problem after someone has clicked.

This video goes through a series of phishing and malware emails that we have been recently sent.

If you think that you have been hit by a phishing or crypto email, TURN THE PC OFF IMMEDIATELY, and call Team Extreme on( 03) 97857162.

Extreme Networks uses and recommends Webroot AV.