Protective Measures Against Phishing Attacks

By Author: Alice Coope
Total Articles: 213
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Technological evolution has helped business houses expand to locations beyond geographical boundaries. The advent of the Internet further makes communication easy and has opened up avenues for an electronic commerce too. However, the online trade and commerce route along with various social networking sites has been the business route for the cyber criminals too. This widely networked electronic communication channel has made every internet user prone to cyber threats and Phishing attacks.

Phishing is all about robbing a customer of his identity and financial details . Launched in the form of emails from dubious websites, these are mostly aimed at the organizations in the wake of aggressive competition to extract business critical information, customer details and other vital information. A tackling Phishing attack, a malicious threat with serious impact on the business is a challenge faced by the techno savvy organization. Organizations however have launched anti-Phishing software as protective measures to safeguard the vital information from Phishing attacks.

Spurious emails that are used for Phishing attacks ...
... are hard to differentiate from the genuine ones. These causes serious damages amounting to vast financial losses both at organizational and individual levels. Organizations thus tend to take up a number of phishing protection measures which include anti-phishing tools, However, the standard phishing protection solutions available today address the technology and the process used. But with cyber criminals targeting the people involved, it becomes imperative for organizations to have a dynamic risk management and control mechanism in place.

Understanding the phishing attacks and educating the employees on their modus-operandi will help in reducing its impact. The anti phishing software is a reliable tool that increases phishing awareness in the organization and alert employees against any unnatural circumstances. Using simulated phishing attack is an excellent method to prepare the employees so as to enable them to handle such situations during real attacks.

IT security has become a major concern for the technologically dependent organizations and business houses. Irrespective of vast technological advancements and innovative applications, the internet based e-commerce, social engineering sites and other networks are still vulnerable to vicious attacks. Leading service providers of IT security solutions have designed and developed anti-Phishing software to help organizations assess their employee awareness levels of social engineering and the issues prevalent.

The anti-Phishing software facilitates organizations to :

* Estimate the probable hazards associated with phishing

* Provides a system of elastic reporting of Phishing attacks which will help organizations to include these for the awareness factor in the performance - indicator framework

* Recognizes the weak links within people, method and technology

* Facilitates benchmarking and maturity analysis and helps to incorporate remediation methods

* Increases security awareness and expertise among employees through proper in-house training to safeguard business critical data

Besides the various antivirus and antispyware software used in the networked environment, today's global and aggressively competitive business demands for an effective solution to protect the organization's vital information related to customer databases, operational strategies from Phishing attacks.