Phishing: What is it and how to prevent?

Phishing: The need to protect your business

Prevention against phishing attacks has become more and more essential as attacks have become an increasingly recurring practice.

Throughout the web, phishing attacks attract numerous victims who hand over important information such as bank account or credit card details, because in many situations it is difficult to detect that it is really an attack.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a form of cyber attack by hackers and its main objective is to obtain personal and confidential information or data - such as passwords - that allow access to internal networks of companies and organizations or private networks.

By obtaining this type of information, hackers can access restricted areas within the network or install control software, resulting in identity theft and financial losses for businesses.

Attacks are usually carried out by email or text message that look like an official or legitimate source.

Methods for preventing phishing attacks

One of the methods to prevent phishing attacks is to identify some aspects, because although phishing emails and sites are similar to emails or sites from safe and reliable sources, there are several differences that can identify if it is a phishing attack, such as the company name being incorrect, similar domains but with small differences, occasional pop-ups, spelling errors, request for personal and confidential information, email structure and formatting mismatch.

Prevention

Investment in training from companies or organizations allows employees to be aware of the seriousness of this type of attack. Through prevention it becomes easier to identify phishing messages in order to avoid security problems in business.

Security Systems

Investing in solid security plans with regular updates is fundamental. Quality antivirus and controlled access to the various areas of internal networks are effective methods to prevent hacker access to systems and maintain the safety of data. In this way, companies protect important information and are not blackmailed into paying large sums of money to retrieve their data and information.

Phishing attacks can be particularly dangerous if no action is taken and not handled properly, and can cause significant losses to an employee and/or the entire business. By disseminating information to raise employee awareness, this type of attack can be prevented or properly handled if it occurs.