The Internet has made all of our daily life tasks much easier than ever before, especially for businesses. In this vast and ever-growing digital landscape that we call the internet, you can find everything you need by your doorstep with just one click. However, with the evolution of the internet and its role in the progression of businesses, cyber threats have also skyrocketed. The most common type of cyber attack remains the good old-fashioned phishing attack.
In the UK alone, an increase of 88% in phishing attacks was reported by cyber security professionals. According to statistics, 22% of all breaches in the past year were recorded to involve one of the four types of phishing.
To know how phishing threatens your business, it is important to gain knowledge about what it actually is.
Phishing And Its Types.
Phishing is a type of social engineering breach that aims to steal data from the servers and computers of the user. In easier words, an attacker masquerades as a friendly entity in an email or a link form and traps users to click on the link. Once the user opens these links, all the personal data on the device is accessible to the hacker. There are four subtypes of phishing that are:
- Vishing: a phone call is made to the victim to trap them into giving away their personal information that the hacker uses for his/her benefit.
- Smishing:an SMS is sent to the victim that usually gets the attention of all victims. This is more successful than email phishing as all users check their SMS.
- Spear phishing:an attack to trap individuals rather than a group is called spear phishing. This type of attack is usually successful as the hacker has personal details incorporated into the attack and make it more believable.
- Whaling:a further targetted subtype of speed phishing is whaling where executives, celebrities and improrsnr personalities are attacked.
How Can I Prevent It?
Now that you have an idea about phishing and its horrors, you will be interested in the solutions required to prevent these malicious attacks. Unfortunately, you will always be exposed to threats unless you have strong cyber security strategies protecting your system. One such type of precaution you can take is called phishing simulation. It is a program that educates employees about fishy emails that could be an attack. Find phishing simulation service at CyberUnlocked for remarkable results.
In Case Of An Attack, What Impact Will It Have On My Business?
I hope you never have to experience a phishing attack but in case you or your business becomes the victim of phishing, it will have a great (negative) impact on your business.
- You will lose customers.
- Your business reputation will be damaged.
- Customer trust will be lost and it will take a long time to rebuild this trust.
- Your company time will be wasted.
- You will have to pay large amounts of ransom to the hacker to recover your data.
