When we think of cybercrimes, we often think of ransomware and malware. Those attacks are often launched through phishing schemes. Phishing can take on many forms including email, pop-ups, texts, and even phone calls. All have the same goal: to obtain unauthorized network or data access for financial gain or identity theft. However, phishing attack prevention is possible. Here are five strategies your IT team should be using to help protect your business.
1. Employee Training
You may think it’s common sense to not open an email or click on a link that you’re not expecting, however, cybercriminals are masters at their craft. Perhaps the easiest phishing attack prevention strategy is educating your staff as to how to spot scams or spam emails. In addition, assure your employees that it’s completely ok to contact the sender, their IT person, or a manager if they doubt an email’s authenticity. Another good rule is to never provide passwords or system access information over the phone.
2. Limit Staff Access
With so much data stored on servers and in the cloud, you may think it’s okay for everyone to have the same access because it’s backed up. However, when you limit staff access to only portions of your data they truly need access to, you limit damage that a cybercriminal can inflict. This also reduces the amount of data restoration necessary.
3. Implement Email Filters
Make sure you’re using email filters to reduce the chances of a malicious email ending up in your inbox. It’s better for the occasional legitimate email to go to spam than for phishing and other malicious emails to end up in your inbox regularly. If you aren’t sure how to set it up, talk to your managed service provider.
4. Utilize Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) makes it more difficult for a cybercriminal to gain access to your data. Even if an employee clicks on a malicious link or a hacker steals a password, when you use MFA, they are stopped because they are unable to provide the authenticator code or hardware key.
5. Review Your Security & Have an Incident Response Plan
As hackers become more sophisticated, so should your security. One benefit of working with a managed service provider is that they can perform regular checks of your security and make improvements when necessary. Of course, no security is 100% which is why you need a response plan in the event something happens. A well thought out and executed incident response plan means faster recovery and less stress.
Toucan Technology Group Offers Cyber Security Services
As an Indianapolis managed service provider, Toucan Technology Group can help you implement not only these phishing attack prevention strategies, but also provide whatever IT services you need. From data backup to network configuration, hardware, software management, and more, we can help your business as your IT provider or a partner with your in-house staff. Call (317) 376-4874 or fill out our contact form for your free consultation.
