Anti-Phishing Solutions
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Reading Time: 5 min
Setting up Anti-Phishing solutions can be a straightforward process, but there are many things to consider. The phishing environment has changed significantly over the past year, just as daily life has. To continue their new scams, phishers and hackers have tried to exploit the various business environments and new tools that have emerged in cyberspace, thanks to working from home.
Phishing sites increased by a record amount in 2020, with Google detecting 2.11 million new sites, a 25% increase over 2019.
How will we prevent hackers from tampering with our site? Will they still be able to steal our users’ passwords? Will the overall process be time-consuming and too much of a hassle?
In this article, we’ll address all these questions along with a comprehensive list of anti-phishing solutions that are easy on the pocket yet effective. Let’s have a look:
Key Takeaways
- Phishing attacks exploit users’ reduced vigilance and lack of training regarding online threats.
- Implementing anti-phishing solutions is essential for organizations that handle customer data.
- DMARC, together with SPF and DKIM, creates a robust framework for protecting email domains from phishing attempts.
- Regularly updating antivirus software is critical to identifying and mitigating emerging threats.
- Employee education on recognizing phishing attempts can significantly reduce the risk of successful attacks.
The Rise of Phishing
Because consumers are suffering an “infobesity” from their received emails, which makes them less vigilant to spot phishing efforts, phishing is so successful today. Cybercriminals are skilled at creating content to trick people and avoiding discovery (customization of content, copy of the graphical charter, etc.). Cybercriminals can develop customized and more genuine email templates by using the information that people give about themselves on social media.
Users might not receive enough training on phishing, how it is used to spread ransomware, and the best ways to handle unexpected threats. Additionally, many people don’t exercise enough skepticism when asked to perform things like transferring money, opening attachments, or divulging critical information. Even worse, some businesses do not consider integrating user education and awareness into their defensive plans.
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Anti-Phishing Solutions for SMBs and Enterprise-grade Businesses
Anti-phishing solutions are a must for any organization that deals with customer data. Anti-phishing solutions aim to prevent phishing attacks by blocking the attacker’s access before they can steal your customer information.
Anti-phishing solutions can be differentiated into two methods: phishing prevention and phishing detection.
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Phishing Prevention Solutions: Deploy a tool to tackle your phishing threats
Phishing prevention is a mechanism that attempts to prevent users from falling victim to phishing attacks by raising awareness and educating users about the risks of these threats and how to protect their data, as well as email authentication and other security tools to stop these attacks.
The most effective way to prevent phishing attacks is to not click on any links or attachments in an email message unless you have verified the sender’s identity.
Fortunately, there are many ways that you can protect yourself from these attacks. Here are some of the most effective methods:
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Try DMARC – A Global Phishing Protection Standard
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) protocols are required for DMARC, or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, to function. For your domain to implement DMARC, at least one of the two must be enabled.
These are essentially worldwide phishing protection standards that give recipients the ability to confirm whether an email seeming to be from a specific domain was sent by a mail server authorized to send emails on that domain’s behalf. When used by a sender, these techniques can shield recipients against phony emails purporting to come from their domain.
How Do They Work?
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are added to the domain name system by the sender). The IP addresses and domain names of approved email servers are listed in the SPF DNS record. DKIM uses an additional public-private key pair for verification. Furthermore, the DMARC DNS record includes requests for reporting back to the sender.
The receiving side receives instructions from DMARC on how to handle bad emails based on the findings from SPF and DKIM. DMARC policy can be configured to allow all emails, reject them, or quarantine them regardless of SPF/DKIM failure.
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Keep Your Antivirus Software Up to Date
It’s important to keep your antivirus software up-to-date to detect new threats as they emerge. If you’re using a commercial product, ensure it’s regularly updated and supports the latest browser version. If you’re using an open source solution, make sure it has been updated recently. You should also perform regular scans with the tool to ensure it’s working correctly and hasn’t been compromised by malware or other problems.
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Two Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication uses something different than passwords and PINs for login access to help protect users against phishing attempts. Two-factor authentication usually involves a one-time code that must be entered after entering a password or PIN instead of relying on a traditional password, making it harder for hackers to access accounts.
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Educate Your Employees
Educate employees about phishing emails through a phishing awareness program. You can help them avoid falling for phishing emails by educating them on the difference between a legitimate email and one that’s not. You can also require them to verify their accounts with us before entering sensitive information online.
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Phishing Detection Methods: Manually detect phishing attempts through general awareness
It is an active approach where you will have to block those harmful emails automatically using various security tools like anti-malware software, antivirus software, etc. This type of solution might not work for every situation, but it helps you to detect and block malicious emails before they infect your device with malware.
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Misspelt Domain Name
Phishing emails will often contain a misspelled domain name. For example, an email that purports to be from “www.facebook.com” but uses the misspelled “facebbok.com” is likely to be fraudulent. The same applies if the domain name has been altered by adding or removing characters.
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Suspicious Attachments
The attachment is often a Word document that contains a malicious macro that automatically downloads malware onto your computer when you open the file.
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Emails with an Unfamiliar Greeting or Salutation
The greeting or salutation of an email should match that used in legitimate messages from the company concerned. If it doesn’t, it’s worth being suspicious about the message’s authenticity before opening it further.
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The Message is Sent From a Public Email Domain
If you see an email address like @gmail.com or @yahoo.com, it’s probably not legitimate — these domains belong to free webmail services that anyone can sign up for. You’re much more likely to receive spam if someone uses their domain name or one reserved by their employer (like @mycompany.com).
Final Words
To quickly detect malicious IP addresses and sending sources, industry experts recommend users to enable DMARC reports for their domain. These aggregated reports provide invaluable information about any email sent from your domain. This not only helps you monitor your email channels for inconsistencies but also helps you respond to failed deliveries of legitimate messages. Overall, this can truly improve your email’s performance and outreach.
To avoid deciphering XML data on your reports, get yourself a DMARC parser. This tool will convert your data into a human-readable format and provide visual appeal, assortment, and filtering options.
Domain & Email Security Expert at PowerDMARC
Ahona is the Marketing Manager at PowerDMARC, with 5+ years of experience in writing about cybersecurity topics, specializing in domain and email security. Ahona holds a post-graduation degree in Journalism and Communications, solidifying her career in the security sector since 2019.
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