TECHNOLOGY
PHISHING ATTACKS DISRUPT
EMAIL SECURITY
By Robert Hessel
by hovering over them. You can also
expand the “from” field of the email and
check who sent it. If you don’t recognize
them, delete the email right away. If there’s
ever any doubt, go to the company’s official
website and contact support. They will
be able to inform you if there is an actual
issue with your account.
The other type of phishing, spear
phishing, is much more targeted and
usually more sophisticated. These attempts
generally occur within businesses; a
perpetrator will claim to be someone
inside the company and send a file to
download. Sometimes this person will
request that an invoice be paid. Again,
look at the sender information; this is your
best way to ascertain whether the email is
suspicious or not.
The best thing consumers can do is to
reduce the sharing of their email addresses.
Companies and online sites have been
known to sell email lists for a pretty
penny. Suppose you are highly invested
in reducing the number of phishing emails
112 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | MAY/JUNE 2021
you receive. In that case, you may consider
starting a new email account and only use
that email to sign up for trusted websites
and services.
For companies and businesses that
struggle with their employees getting
caught in the phishing nightmare, employee
training will be your best line of defense.
We suggest the following layers: regular
employee avoidance training, quarantine
and remediation solutions, multi-factor
authentication for corporate accounts, and
DMARC domain protection.
The bottom line is this: phishing attacks
can be hazardous and detrimental to the
companies we work for, our personal
lives, and our pocketbooks. By paying
close attention to the content in each
email we receive, we can deny phishers
the satisfaction of hooking us. 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Hessel at Source 1
Solutions can be contacted at (727) 538-4114
or by visiting source1solutions.com.
P hishing attacks have increased in
prevalence since the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic, especially
coronavirus-related attempts. With
so many of us working from home on
non-business connections, it has been the
perfect storm for phishing experts to earn
a little extra cash. We must practice better
email security so that we limit the spread
of malware and other detrimental bits of
code between our personal connections
and our employers’ networks.
Email security is important because no
computer is an isolated island. If your
device is connected to the internet or the
network of the company you work for,
there is a massive potential for damage.
While malware, spyware, ransomware,
and viruses are a significant consideration
in email security, phishing attacks are also
a threat; they are a threat to your personal
information and identity.
There’s a good reason phishing sounds
precisely like “fishing.” A phishing email
or phishing attack will target a large
mailing list, essentially trolling the list for
a gullible or susceptible reader. Phishing
emails often begin with something meant to
spark emotion and build trust; many early-
COVID phishing attacks implored readers
to fund vaccine development, while others
have been circulating for years.
There are two general types of phishing
attacks: general and spear. As the name
might imply, general phishing attacks have
no intended target; they are optimized
for a broad audience, usually standard
consumers. These emails will usually try
to look like a website you often frequent
such as Amazon, PayPal, TurboTax,
Outlook, and more. Luring you in with a
scary notification like “your account will
be suspended,” or “your bill is overdue,”
these emails will lead you to a fake website
that will prompt you for and steal your
login credentials.
Always check the links within an email
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