Critical Components of Phishing Awareness Training
As we just touched on, phishing protection doesn’t need to become a
huge burden on your business. However, it absolutely must be something
you take seriously. Make a real effort and your staff will follow suit.
With that said, let’s now look at the critical components of phishing protection training.
First and foremost, you need to bring up the steps involved in proper phishing protection on a regular basis. This kind of consistency will keep it in the forefront of your employees’ heads. If you only bring it up every now and then, you can’t be too surprised when your people fall into a lull and become vulnerable to attack.
Along the same lines, you have to consider turnover. While proper phishing protection should be part of your new employee orientation programs, the different lengths of time people have been working for your company will automatically mean some people are exposed to the training more than others.
We’ll talk about how often you need to carry out some form of phishing protection in a moment, but for now, just recognize that this has to be a part of how you train your employees.
Second, your staff must understand what phishing attacks look like. The good news is that, unlike other forms of cyberattacks, phishing is 100% preventable. Your defenses don’t depend on high-tech anti-hacking coding, as much as they do on your people knowing what to look for and reporting attacks.
Again, covering this topic in detail during orientation will go a long way toward the results you want. Here are common traits of a phishing email:
We already talked about consistently reminding your staff of proper phishing protection best practices. We would also recommend that you make them aware of successful phishing attacks that have happened in your industry.
For one thing, doing so will give them a very good idea of what they’re up against. They’ll get to learn about the ways phishing scams work in your particular field.
It also serves as a good reminder that these aren’t idle concerns on the part of your company. You’re not worrying too much. Phishing is very real and the consequences are extremely damaging.
Fifth, it’s not a bad idea to try phishing your own people. Create a third-party email address and send out emails from time to time to see if you can catch anyone slipping.
There are also companies you can hire for this service. They’ll test your people’s phishing protection knowledge and report back to you on the results.
This is probably the best way to make sure your company is ready. Word will quickly spread that your people should actually expect these kinds of attacks, which will make them much more vigilant.
Finally, don’t leave out upper management. They need to be just as ready as the rest of your company.
In fact, some scam artists will carry out in-depth research just to target your executives. Instead of a generic greeting, they’ll use the target’s full name. They’ll find out personal details about their target so they can include them in their message in an attempt to get the recipient to drop their guard.
Phishing protection needs to be something everyone in the company sees as their own personal responsibility. This includes everyone from temps to the CEO.
With that said, let’s now look at the critical components of phishing protection training.
First and foremost, you need to bring up the steps involved in proper phishing protection on a regular basis. This kind of consistency will keep it in the forefront of your employees’ heads. If you only bring it up every now and then, you can’t be too surprised when your people fall into a lull and become vulnerable to attack.
Along the same lines, you have to consider turnover. While proper phishing protection should be part of your new employee orientation programs, the different lengths of time people have been working for your company will automatically mean some people are exposed to the training more than others.
We’ll talk about how often you need to carry out some form of phishing protection in a moment, but for now, just recognize that this has to be a part of how you train your employees.
Second, your staff must understand what phishing attacks look like. The good news is that, unlike other forms of cyberattacks, phishing is 100% preventable. Your defenses don’t depend on high-tech anti-hacking coding, as much as they do on your people knowing what to look for and reporting attacks.
Again, covering this topic in detail during orientation will go a long way toward the results you want. Here are common traits of a phishing email:
- Incorrect “From” Addresses: Many scam artists will use similar email addresses to those of official companies and/or trusted parties. Always take a second to double-check and make sure the address is correct.
- Urgent Action Required: The vast majority of phishing attacks rely on pushing the recipient to act quickly, before they take the time to execute proper caution. Any email with this kind of urgency should be scrutinized. After all, if it was really an emergency situation, the sender probably would have called.
- Generic Greetings: Pulling off a successful phishing scam often entails sending out a number of emails. The con artist knows many of their ploys will be ignored or otherwise avoided, so they play the numbers game. Unfortunately for them, this usually means using generic greetings and leaving out people’s names entirely.
- Fraudulent Links: Your staff should always hover over a link in an email before clicking on it. By doing so, they’ll see what the actual web address is that they’ll be taken to. It’s a common misconception that the address displayed is also the site you’ll pull up if you click on it. Obviously, if a link is going to take you to a totally different site, it’s not to be trusted.
We already talked about consistently reminding your staff of proper phishing protection best practices. We would also recommend that you make them aware of successful phishing attacks that have happened in your industry.
For one thing, doing so will give them a very good idea of what they’re up against. They’ll get to learn about the ways phishing scams work in your particular field.
It also serves as a good reminder that these aren’t idle concerns on the part of your company. You’re not worrying too much. Phishing is very real and the consequences are extremely damaging.
Fifth, it’s not a bad idea to try phishing your own people. Create a third-party email address and send out emails from time to time to see if you can catch anyone slipping.
There are also companies you can hire for this service. They’ll test your people’s phishing protection knowledge and report back to you on the results.
This is probably the best way to make sure your company is ready. Word will quickly spread that your people should actually expect these kinds of attacks, which will make them much more vigilant.
Finally, don’t leave out upper management. They need to be just as ready as the rest of your company.
In fact, some scam artists will carry out in-depth research just to target your executives. Instead of a generic greeting, they’ll use the target’s full name. They’ll find out personal details about their target so they can include them in their message in an attempt to get the recipient to drop their guard.
Phishing protection needs to be something everyone in the company sees as their own personal responsibility. This includes everyone from temps to the CEO.
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