Phishing attacks pose a severe threat to businesses of all sizes. These sophisticated scams aim to steal sensitive information by impersonating trusted sources. Without robust defenses, employees can fall victim to phishing attempts and expose the organization to data breaches, financial fraud or reputational damage.
This comprehensive guide will provide everything you need to know about defending your business against phishing.
What is Phishing and Why is it a Big Problem?
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often delivered through emails or websites designed to trick users into sharing sensitive data or installing malware. The overall industry damage from phishing could reach $14 billion in 2023.
Over 90% of data breaches start with a phishing attack. Some common targets include:
- Login credentials
- Financial information
- Personal data
Once the attacker gains an initial foothold, they can expand access and severely impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of an organization’s systems and data.
Types of Phishing Attacks
While email continues to be the most prevalent vector, attackers utilize other techniques such as:
SMS Phishing: Malicious links sent via text message often involving fake package tracking notifications or bank alerts to harvest credentials.
Voice Phishing: Fraudulent phone calls pretending to be from a trusted institution to manipulate users into sharing sensitive information through social engineering.
Social Media Phishing: Scams propagate through social media posts and ads trying to get users to input credentials on fake pages.
Spear Phishing: Highly customized emails targeting specific individuals within a company, appearing to come from a trusted source.
Whaling: Spear phishing attempts directed specifically at senior executives.
Business Email Compromise (BEC): Sophisticated, well-researched social engineering scam typically targeting finance teams to initiate unauthorized wire transfers.
By the Numbers: Phishing Statistics
- 83% of organizations experienced a phishing attack in 2022 [Source].
- Phishing was involved in 70% of security incidents that caused data breach [Source].
- 63% of data breaches traced back to weak or reused passwords obtained via phishing [Source].
- Each phishing attack costs large enterprises an average of $1.6 million [Source].
- The average click rate on phishing emails is 11% [Source].
These alarming metrics showcase how phishing threatens businesses of all sizes across every industry.
Common Phishing Techniques and Red Flags
Cybercriminals utilize an array of psychological tricks and technical methods to craft convincing phishing lures. Some techniques include:
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Spoofed sender details: Emails pretending to come from a trusted source using forged display names and email addresses.
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Urgent or exciting subject lines: Subjects like “Urgent: Account Verification Needed” abuse fear and curiosity triggers.
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Malicious attachments/links: Embedded links often utilize URL shortening or redirects to mask the true malicious destination.
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Logos/brand imagery: Official-looking logos and branding elements help phishing sites appear legitimate.
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Fake security warnings: Pop-ups warning of account lockouts or system issues coerce victims.
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Typosquatting: Subtle misspellings in domains, like facebook.co instead of facebook.com, trick careless readers.
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Follow-up spoofing: Attackers spoof IT/security teams claiming the previous message had “issues” and asking users to re-enter credentials.
With attention and training, employees can spot some common red flags:
- Grammatical/spelling errors
- Threatening urgent action
- Suspicious sender address
- Generic greetings like “Dear user”
- Unexpected password reset requests
- Links not matching destination text
- Odd URLs or domain names
Ongoing employee education is crucial, but technology also plays a critical role in stopping threats before they reach users and cause harm.
Why Anti-Phishing Tools Are Essential
With the sophistication of modern phishing attacks, relying solely on human detection is ineffective and risky. Automating aspects of phishing defense with anti-phishing tools provides substantial benefits:
Real-time threat blocking: Anti-phishing software utilizes constantly updated databases, analytics and threat intelligence to identify and stop attacks at email gateways before reaching users.
Email header analysis: Scrutinizing subtle technical clues in email headers allows anti-phishing tools to identify spoofed/forged sender details.
Link scanning: Follows links to their final destination, even when shortened/redirected, to check for phishing URLs.
Attachment sandboxing: Opens email attachments in isolated environments to detect potential malware.
Employee reporting: Easy feedback channels empower staff to report suspicious messages for analysis by tools/admins.
Awareness training: Anti-phishing platforms provide training modules and simulated phishing emails to improve workforce resilience.
Incident response automation: Advanced platforms can automatically remediate issues by removing malicious emails from inboxes after delivery.
Analytics for IT: Detailed reporting and metrics help administrators analyze the organization’s phishing threat landscape and fine-tune defenses.
Best Anti-Phishing Software for Business
Now let’s explore some of the top anti-phishing tools on the market to consider for protecting your business:
1. Cofense PhishMe
Cofense PhishMe focuses on human-driven phishing defense by combining employee conditioning, reporting and incident response orchestration. Users forward suspicious emails to Cofense for analysis by cybersecurity experts.
Key Features:
- Employee awareness training
- Simulated phishing generator
- Easy employee reporting
- Incident response orchestration
- Threat intelligence harvesting
- Detailed reporting
Pricing: Starts at $12 per user annually for awareness-focused package
2. GreatHorn
GreatHorn offers a full anti-phishing stack integrating email and web security. Its cloud architecture requires no on-premise hardware.
Key Features:
- Real-time email threat detection
- Link click-time protection
- Impersonation analysis
- Attachment sandboxing
- Automated phishing site takedowns
- Awareness training and phishing simulations
- User compliance reporting
Pricing: $4 per user monthly billed annually
3. Ironscales
Ironscales provides advanced phishing protection focused on inbox defense and remediation. It leverages incident response playbooks to restore email hygiene after attacks.
Key Features:
- Multi-layered inbound email analysis
- Automated investigation and response capabilities
- AI-powered user impersonation detection
- Phishing simulation generator
- Third-party threat intel integration
- Automated analyst hand-off
Pricing: Starts at $21 per user monthly
4. INKY Phish Fence
INKY Phish Fence uses AI and computer vision to evaluate email content like a human. This allows it to identify phishing emails other tools may miss.
Key Features:
- AI-powered visual mail analysis
- Link click-time protection
- Impersonation detection
- Embedded training and simulations
- Detailed reporting and forensics
Pricing: Starts at $7 per user monthly
5. Barracuda Sentinel
Barracuda Sentinel leverages AI to analyze patterns and behaviors to provide visibility into spear phishing attacks.
Key Features:
- Email protection backed by sandboxing
- AI-assisted attack investigation
- Employee awareness education
- Automated incident response
- Dedicated password protection
Pricing: $15 per user monthly
6. Mimecast
Mimecast secures organizations against advanced email threats like spear-phishing via its cloud-based email gateway.
Key Features:
- Multi-layered email threat protection
- Impersonation analysis
- URL sandboxing
- Emergency mailbox search and retrieval
- Security awareness training
- Detailed logs, auditing and forensics
Pricing: Starts at $2.25 per user monthly
7. Cyren Inbox Security
Cyren Inbox Security leverages layered machine learning models to provide email protection and anti-phishing.
Key Features:
- Real-time behavioral email analytics
- Protection against business email compromise
- Embedded security awareness training
- Anti-spoofing and impersonation
- Incident response automation
Pricing: $30 per user annually
8. Zerospam
Zerospam integrates email security, archiving, encryption and business continuity. It focuses specifically on blocking business email compromise attacks.
Key Features:
- Real-time email threat prevention
- Protection against account takeover and financial fraud
- Automated threat remediation
- Forensic reporting for compliance
- Email continuity even when primary systems are down
Pricing: $6 per user monthly
9. Emmoco FraudWall
FraudWall combines phishing simulations, cybersecurity training and data visualization to equip workforces against targeted attacks.
Key Features:
- Automated simulated phishing campaigns
- Detailed reporting on vulnerabilities
- Customizable cybersecurity training
- Integration with Google Workspace
- Real-time dashboard showing vulnerabilities
Pricing: Starts at $3 per user monthly
10. RoBdefense
RoBdefense offers an advanced anti-phishing email gateway combining threat intelligence, heuristics and machine learning to model normal vs. anomalous traffic.
Key Features:
- Link protection and certificate validation
- Automated threat updates feed advanced models
- Protection for additional vectors like Dropbox and Google Drive
- Easy integration and deployment
- Forensics windows and attack origin tracing
Pricing: Custom enterprise quotes
11. PhishLabs
PhishLabs focuses on managed phishing threat protection including attack simulation, training and incident response tailoring.
Key Features:
- Bespoke phishing awareness programs
- Automated training simulations
- Detailed trends reporting
- Customizable security bulletins
- Ongoing security analyst training
- Incident response retainer options
Pricing: Tailored managed services contracts
This list highlights some prominent anti-phishing solutions, but many email security suites also include anti-phishing capabilities:
- Proofpoint
- Cisco Email Security
- Microsoft Defender for Office 365
- Broadcom (Symantec) Email Security.cloud
- Trellix (McAfee) Email Security
Building an Anti-Phishing Strategy
While anti-phishing solutions provide a critical layer of automated defense, organizations still need layered people, process and technology controls for maximal protection including:
Security awareness training: Regular simulated phishing combined with engaging awareness content to condition employees to recognize and resist phishing attempts.
Technology controls: Email security, multi-factor authentication, endpoint protection software, DNS filtering and patching programs to reduce attack surfaces.
Policies and processes: Incident response playbooks, password policies, cyber insurance, data governance and more to enable resilience.
Reporting procedures: Clear guidelines for employees on identifying and reporting phishing attempts to security teams for rapid response.
Integrating anti-phishing tools within broader defenses provides overlapping protection to block threats.
How Can Businesses Respond to Successful Phishing Attacks?
Despite best efforts, some phishing attempts may still breach defenses. IT/security teams need to swiftly contain the incident then investigate, eradicate remnants and recover to prevent further damage:
- Isolate compromised accounts
- Force password resets where needed
- Suspend affected email to prevent onward phishing
- Scan for additional signs of compromise
- Determine if any data was exfiltrated
- Pinpoint attack origin if possible
- Remove malicious emails from additional inboxes to prevent infection
- Brief affected customers/partners per breach notification policies
- Review security controls gaps that allowed the breach
Lessons learned then feed back into the overall security strategy.
The Bottom Line
As phishing techniques become more advanced, organizations cannot rely entirely on employees as the last line of defense. Automating aspects of phishing prevention using specialized anti-phishing tools provides a critical advantage.
Combined with robust awareness training for staff and solid incident response plans for security teams, anti-phishing software gives companies the best chance of withstanding this prevalent threat.
Implementing ongoing simulated phishing, strong reporting procedures and layered security controls also help businesses manage risk. With cyberattacks growing daily, the time is now to evaluate and invest in anti-phishing defenses.
