What is phishing protection?
Phishing protection refers to security measures that companies can take to prevent phishing attacks on their employees. Phishing is a form of cybercrime where attackers dupe targets into revealing sensitive data: bank account numbers, credit card information, login credentials, Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information. Attackers contact targets through email that is disguised to appear as if it is from a trusted source or a legitimate company. By convincing targets that there is a problem of some kind they must remedy quickly, attackers get users to click on a link that directs them to a fraudulent website where their sensitive information is captured and where malware may be downloaded to their computer.
How to protect against phishing attacks?
There are a variety of phishing protection solutions that companies can implement to protect employees and the organization.
- Security awareness training programs typically include education on phishing protection that teaches users how to spot phishing email and what to do when they encounter an attack.
- DNS authentication services are a powerful form of phishing protection that use DMARC, DKIM and SPF protocols to determine whether an email sent from a certain domain is legitimate or fraudulent.
- Email scanning and filtering solutions provide email protection by scanning every link and every attachment in every email and preventing users from opening them if they are thought to be dangerous.
- Anti-impersonation software provides phishing protection against malware-less attacks that use social engineering-based techniques to impersonate trusted sources.
- Anti-malware and anti-spam software provide phishing protection at the network level, stopping phishing emails before they reach user mailboxes.
Improve phishing security with Mimecast
It takes powerful phishing protection solutions to defend your organization against ever-evolving email phishing scams. In phishing attacks, hackers send email that appears to be from a trusted and legitimate source in order to dupe employees into revealing sensitive information like bank account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers or credit card information. Spear phishing attacks go one step further by targeting individuals, using information gleaned from their web presence to pose as a trusted colleague or business in an email. In whale phishing attacks, also known as CEO or CFO fraud, attackers pose as high-level executives and trick employees into wiring money to a bogus account.
For many organizations, phishing protection involves educating users to spot the signs of a potentially fraudulent email. 1With more than 90% of hacking attacks starting with some kind of phishing email, a stronger layer of phishing protection is clearly required to protect your organization and users from these devastating attacks.
1 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report
Mimecast solutions for superior protection against phishing
Mimecast provides leading phishing protection solution with Targeted Threat Protection. As part of Mimecast's all-in-one solution for email security, archiving and continuity, Targeted Threat Protection extension traditional Gateway security to stop phishing emails by defending against hackers' most successful techniques:
- Social engineering. Mimecast provides phishing protection to prevent spear phishing, scanning all inbound email in real-time, searching for key indicators in the header, domain information and body content that suggest an email may be fraudulent. Suspicious messages can be blocked, bounced or tagged with a warning before being sent on to users.
- Malicious URLs. Mimecast provides real-time scanning of the URLs in inbound email, preventing users from clicking on malicious links or visiting websites that may contain malware. All URLs in archived emails are scanned as well to prevent against delayed attacks.
- Weaponized attachments. For phishing protection against attachments that may contain malware, Mimecast preemptively sandboxes attachments or converts them to a safe format before sending them on to employees.
In addition to phishing protection, Targeted Threat Protection provides protection against a wide range of threats including zero-day attacks and virus ransomware.
Benefits of Mimecast's email phishing protection
When choosing Mimecast for email phishing protection, you'll benefit from:
- Email phishing protection that can be implemented instantly on and off the corporate network, including for mobile devices.
- Quick service activation offered through Mimecast's cloud platform.
- Real-time threat analysis based by granular reporting capabilities.
Learn more about phishing protection from Mimecast, and about solutions to address Office 365 phishing, Office 365 security compliance and tools to stop ransomware.
FAQs: Phishing protection
What is the best phishing protection?
While there is no single solution that provides 100% phishing protection, a multi-layered approach to phishing protection is probably the best and most effective solution. Companies can simplify phishing protection by choosing an email security partner that can provide comprehensive services that include not only phishing protection, but protection against a variety of other advanced threats, along with data leak protection, content control, secure messaging, email archiving and email continuity solutions.
What is spear-phishing protection?
Spear-phishing protection involves measures to protect users from spear-phishing attacks, which are a much more targeted form of phishing. Spear-phishing uses information gathered from research, from online profiles and from social media to create email messages that are full of the kinds of personal details and references that convinced recipients the sender is a trusted and known source. In addition to many of the technologies used for phishing protection, spear-phishing protection requires solutions that can identify the unique indicators of potential spear-phishing attempts such as domain similarity, header anomalies, sender spoofing and other emerging techniques.
How to implement phishing protection fast?
The most effective way to deploy phishing protection quickly is to choose a vendor or partner with a comprehensive cloud-based solution that requires no installation of hardware and software. With a SaaS-based service, organizations can implement phishing protection within a day or two, whereas an on-premise system may take weeks or months to be fully operational.
