1. Run Regular Phishing Exercises
Most people fall prey to phishing attacks because they either weren’t aware of their existence or because they didn’t know how to spot one. In order to make sure that everyone is aware of how to protect against them, it’s best to conduct a company-wide simulated phishing attack.
This is a type of exercise where employees are intentionally sent emails that look like phishing attacks, helping employees become familiar with what these emails look like. If you conduct the phishing exercise and your employees fail to spot the mock emails, that is ok! A phishing exercise is a perfect place for your employees to learn from their mistakes without running the risk of giving up any valuable company information.
In addition to conducting regular phishing exercises, you can utilize email protection software that’s capable of not only detecting phishing emails but also quarantining them so your employees are less likely to encounter them.
2. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Passwords are the front-line of defense for your email accounts, but why stop there? By utilizing MFA, no one is able to break into business applications or accounts unless two or more pieces of evidence are used to validate who is trying to get into your account.
If you have an email account with Google then you’ve likely already experienced MFA in action whenever they send you a certain code to enter before allowing access to your account, sometimes even texting the code directly to your smartphone.
3. Quarantine and Remediate Messages
Your email accounts undoubtedly receive unwanted messages and inappropriate content like phishing links. Even if you get your employees trained on how to spot and avoid these emails, you still don’t want them sitting in inboxes.
It’s good practice to quarantine nefarious emails. Your IT team or MSP could do this manually, but it’s more efficient to utilize a program that does the job on autopilot.
Once the emails have been quarantined, the next step is to remediate them via deletion.
4. Preview Shortened URLs Before Opening Them
Shortened URLs often come from bit.ly or goo.gl. They’re convenient for compressing long URLs down to a reasonable size, but they tend to mask the destination of the URL. Before clicking, make sure to preview the shortened URL before following it.
5. Enforce Solid Password Policies
When it comes to password protection, if your people aren’t prepared, your company isn’t prepared. This is especially true for some of the more sophisticated social engineering attacks.
In order to keep your entire organization on the same page regarding password security, you should create and enforce solid password protocols. This can involve things like imposing a minimum password length, creating an account lockout policy that triggers after a certain number of login attempts, and requiring employees to use special characters in their passwords.
One of the most important email protocols for your employees to understand is not to share their passwords with other employees, even the IT team.
6. Email Fraud Defence
Software solutions exist that authenticate legitimate emails and block fraudulent messages before they even have a chance to reach your inboxes. If you’re working with an MSP, be sure to ask them about this service.
Are Your Organization’s Emails Secure?
Email security is a subject that can take up a decent amount of your company’s time and energy.
Without a dedicated IT team to maintain the security of your work email accounts, you run the risk of unwanted third parties taking a peek into your communications or manipulating your employees to accidentally give up critical business data.
With our Managed Security Services, you get top-of-the-line cybersecurity solutions that automate much of the tedious work that you’d normally need to do to counter the slew of email attacks that barrage businesses like yours.
