Spotting Hacks and Scams: What You Need to Know About Phishing
Imagine you're enjoying your morning coffee when an email from your director pops up. They are asking you to discretely purchase gift cards to reward a few high-performing team members.
It feels urgent, sincere, and a perfectly reasonable request. But what if it’s not real? Say you go ahead and diligently purchase the gift cards, and then your director asks you to send through the gift card numbers and codes on the back of the card. Someone is in for a shopping spree, but it’s not the high-performing team members.
With access to platforms like LinkedIn and other social media channels to gather information, cybercriminals can craft highly personalised phishing emails that appear legitimate, making it easier than ever to trick even the most vigilant employees.
The internet is an incredible tool for growth and collaboration, but it also opens the door to serious threats like phishing attacks that aim to steal your data and compromise your organisation.
Learn how to spot a phishing attempt and how to protect yourself and your business from these evolving risks.
What is Phishing, and Why Is It Dangerous?
Phishing is a type of cyberattack where someone pretends to be a trusted source to trick you into revealing sensitive information such as login credentials, financial details, or access to internal systems. This is very different from the usual spam that clutters your inbox with unwanted promotions and irrelevant product offers.
Phishing emails are carefully designed to deceive, not just distract. Phishing often starts with an email or message that looks harmless: “You’ve won a prize!” or “Please review this invoice.” But phishing is becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect with emails resembling everyday work emails, which can make them even more dangerous.
Running a Phishing Simulation
To demonstrate how real these threats are, we frequently run simulated phishing experiments with our clients. The emails look legitimate, with recognisable branding, are familiar in tone, and even reference real business terms and scenarios.
Quite often in these simulations, recipients will click the link in the phishing email and attempt to log in, unknowingly handing over their credentials to a fake site. This is how easy it is for a business’s data to become exposed from a single innocent mistake.
Luckily, we have the tools and training to help keep you and your staff safe.
Phishing Tests and Simulations
Phishing simulations are often the first step we take to help employees understand what a threat can look like with exposure to a phishing email in a safe and controlled environment.
Following a phishing campaign, we provide a detailed report with results of the test and outline the organisation’s current risk level. We offer follow-up cybersecurity training and guides to help raise awareness levels and organisational competency in identifying and responding to suspicious activity like a phishing scam.
Through ongoing exposure to simulations and training, we’ve seen a significant increase in overall cyber awareness among our clients.
Let’s look at some simple steps you can take right now to reduce the risk of falling victim to a phishing attack.
How to Spot a Phishing Email
The tactics used by cyber criminals are constantly evolving and it’s becoming more difficult to distinguish phishing attempts from legitimate communications, but there are some common red flags to watch out for:
- An unusual sending address or domain that doesn’t match the usual sender
- Emails asking you to urgently log in or reset your password
- Requests for gift cards, payments, or invoice approvals from unexpected sources
- Generic greetings or inconsistent branding
If something feels off, trust your instincts. Don’t click. Instead, go directly to the website using your saved links, or call the sender to confirm. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Keen to run a Phishing Simulation?
We help businesses build awareness and cybersecurity resilience against phishing threats. If you’re considering running a phishing simulation or are interested in cybersecurity training for your team, please get in touch. We’re here to help.
