Businesses worldwide have, on several occasions, witnessed the impact that can be caused by a virus attack. Hence anti-virus software is now widely used by enterprises of all sizes. However, Phishing Attacks which are more sophisticated in nature are not so widely understood, and very few businesses are equipped to deal with these attacks. And this lack of knowledge about phishing attacks can pose a significant threat to the very survival of a business.
Organizations therefore need to understand phishing attacks in more detail, and prepare to defend themselves against these attacks. And they should primarily be aware of the fact that phishing attacks are not virus attacks involving malicious software. So, neither an anti-virus solution nor an anti-spam filter is sufficient to completely protect businesses from these attacks.
Phishing Attacks are very advanced and targeted in nature, usually appear to be legitimate, and often bypass or go undetected by spam filters. These attacks are highly organized and coordinated by specialized groups, and launched with the aim to divulge financial, or identity information. The sophisticated and tricky nature of these attacks necessitates protection at various levels of the enterprise network. But first of all, certain basic measures have to be taken to successfully protect an enterprise from falling prey to Phishes.
Educating Employees
Training employees to effectively identify phishing attacks is the first step to ensure complete protection. Employees have to be taught to question the source of unexpected email messages demanding sensitive information. Phishing can be usually identified by the URL. Phishers use long and complex URLs or raw IP addresses. They also use URL redirection techniques which may be an important indicator. However, these techniques are also sometimes used by legitimate companies. Therefore, employees should be taught how to differentiate phishing email from genuine ones.
Policy Enforcement
Formulating an IT security policy framework and enforcing a set of safety procedures can be of immense help in mitigating risks not only associated with phishing, but also with other security attacks. Preventive measures such as verifying the legitimacy of suspicious email messages, implementing procedures to deal with email messages that demand sensitive information such as passwords, account numbers etc, can come a long way.
Technology Solutions
An organization’s anti-phishing initiatives are entirely fruitful only when they are backed by efficient software solutions that can capably tackle phishing attacks. A unified governance risk and compliance system or an integrated IT compliance solution is therefore a prerequisite, not only to curb phishing attacks but also to ensure complete IT compliance.
Preventing phishing attacks can be a formidable challenge for organizations because these attacks cannot be controlled by merely implementing filters and firewalls. Therefore organizations need to take a comprehensive approach to implement appropriate policies and procedures and educate employees, while also adopting an integrated security solution that can help prevent phishing.
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