When it comes to hacking valuable information phishing attacks are the most common type that challenges both individuals as well as organizations. Whether it’s about accessing your password, bank or credit card details, hijacking your emails and phone calls or any other sensitive information, in the wrong hands can bankrupt you. One of the most dangerous and highly successful types of phishing is spear phishing. They are sophisticatedly designed to victimize specific individuals by hunting them to gain their personal information such as email address, hobbies, recent activities, and social media accounts. This is why you need to have PhishProtection- spear phishing prevention best practices on your fingertips.
How Spear Phishing Works
The key difference between phishing and spear phishing is that spear phishing is designed and customized while keeping a significant victim in mind. They keep an eye on them like vultures. They even customize their emails to make them look as convincing as possible by using the details they get from the victim’s social media accounts or simply by using Google search history.
How to prevent phishing attacks
Given the dangers of providing sensitive information to the wrong people it’s important to keep your friends and colleagues informed and vigilant. From Mimecast – stop spear phishing we have gathered a few of the spear phishing best practices used by people that can help you to be safe rather than being sorry.
Spear Phishing Best Practices
Below are few tested tips to avoid spear phishing but you can also refer to the guide: KnowBe4 – learn about spear phishing
1. Filter your email accounts and imply anti-phishing protection
Apart from traditional anti-spam or anti-virus security you should go an extra mile and get extra anti-phishing software for your organization. The reason behind extra security is that spear phishing emails do not contain any malware and hence cannot be spammed which is how they can bypass traditional security solutions.
2. Encrypt any sensitive information
Data encryption has always proven to be one of the best ways to prevent your data from getting into the wrong hands. It makes it impossible for hackers to access and tweak data and lessens the chances of an attack on the system.
3. Conduct Multi-Factor Authentication
This data protection has been used by many giants such as Google and Facebook. It allows access to the data only upon completion of an authentication process. It means that you implement additional security layers to protect your information from getting leaked.
4. Use DMARC technology
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance or DMARC is another way to circumvent spear phishing. As the name suggests, it ensures that any email you receive, the sender’s information is already recorded in the database, if not, it’ll automatically notify your security admin.
5. Conduct Email Security Training for Employees
It is vital to spread awareness in your organization so that your employees can identify incoming attacks and respond carefully to every suspicious email.
Defeat Spear Phishing
Putting details on the internet is like putting them in a vortex where anyone can hack into your information and use it against you. By practicing the tested tips and staying vigilant you can avoid or at least limit the damage from Spear Phishing.
