Your Business Could Benefit from a Simulated Phishing Attack

Phishing emails are designed by malicious web users to trick people into supplying sensitive information, and they can be a huge problem for business owners. While having your personal network infiltrated can be embarrassing, having a work email address compromised can result in significant damage.

Here’s why you should have a simulated phishing attack performed.

Simulated Phishing Attacks Uncover Weak Points

You may be confident in your ability to detect and ignore the merest scent of a phishing email, but what about your employees? Employee error is the root of a huge percentage of security problems. One recent study saw one company circulate a simulated phishing email to their employees. It stated that they would earn a salary boost simply by replying to the message with additional verification information. It seems like a pretty obvious scam, but around one-quarter of the company’s 5,000 employees opened the email and two-thirds of those provided the requested verification information.

The Value of Education

Such findings underline the importance of employee education, and a simulated attack can be a great way to let people know how easy it is to be taken in by a phishing email. Additionally, you may want to check out this site to know about the dangers associated with phishing such as payment fraud or fake invoice scams. Your team will also learn common tactics and understand common red flags. Many experts have pointed out that the most robust defence against such threats is a ‘human firewall’ made of trained workers.

Awareness of Security

Of course, even a fake phishing attack will improve general awareness and reward scrutiny; employees will be just as worried about being singled out as someone who fell for a simulated phishing email as they will be about falling foul of a real one. In most cases, paying such conspicuous attention to security serves the added purpose of opening the lines of communication and making employees more likely to come forward if they suspect something is wrong. Additionally, businesses can use Sekur email security services (or services similar to them) to reduce the chances of phishing attacks. Using email security services, businesses can encrypt attached files, and sensitive information shared between employees, which could help them in avoiding potential data breaches.

And you’ll increase your own knowledge as an added plus. Security training metrics can be taken and analysed to track the effectiveness of your training over time. You’ll then be able to target those most in need of assistance.

Colin Shaw
Share Button

Written by Colin Shaw

Colin has been in the finance market for over 20 years and specialises in best business practice to make an organisation profitable. The only man for the job when it comes to numbers and accounts with a keen talent for simplifying finance for the wider market.