How to Detect and Prevent Email-Based Cyber Attacks
Email attacks haven’t changed much over the years: use strong passwords, block spammers, and verify requests even from trusted entities, they say! However, all these practices have not stopped email from being a significant security vulnerability.
Email attacks affect organizations of all sizes as cybercriminals use them to compromise sensitive information, steal data, or carry out other cybercrimes.
Many organizations use email to pass sensitive and confidential business information, and these attackers take advantage of the weakness in email security to steal this information. Without special protective measures, attackers can intercept email messages, resulting in significant financial loss, data loss, and damage to business reputation.
In this blog, Cyber Cops takes us through how organizations can protect their business effectively from email-based cyber-attacks.
What is Email-Based Cyber Attacks?
Email-based cyber-attacks are when wrong activities are done by cyber criminals through email to compromise, exploit, and steal sensitive information from individuals, businesses, or organizations.
What these attacks do is often to have unauthorized access to business information to carry out cybercrimes. Therefore, it is important to use strong email security practices if you want to protect from email based cyber attacks
How to Detect Email-Based Cyber Attacks?
Emails remain the weakest links to carry out cyberattacks and according to reports, spam messages accounted for more than 50% of email generated across the globe. Common email attacks include the following:
- Phishing
This happens when a fraudulent email is sent and disguised like it is from an authorized, trusted source. Phishing emails often have a sense of urgency or make you feel like your software is unsafe. For example: It can come with headings like “Your account has been compromised” and “Reset your password now”
The purpose of this email is to deceive the recipient into installing malware on his or her device or share personal or financial information.
- Spear Phishing
This type of email is often targeted to people working under executives in many corporations. The goal of these emails is to look like they are coming from a senior executive in the organization. It can also involve requesting money transfers or other sensitive information.
- Email Spoofing
This is a type of email-based cyber-attack where the sender’s email address is made to look like it is coming from a trusted source.
- Email Thread Hijacking
This email-based cyber-attack involves infiltrating a vulnerable email server or other server to have complete access to ongoing email conversations. This email fraudulent method can lead to exploiting the trust of the people involved to access sensitive systems and installation of ransomware or malware.
- Business Email Compromise
This email attack is when a cybercriminal sends a fake email appearing to be from someone in or associated with the target’s company requesting urgent action. This can include sending huge amounts of money, purchasing gift cards, and many more.
How to Prevent Email-Based Cyber Attacks?
- Train Your Employees
Cybercriminals are known for creating malicious emails and making them look harmless through the use of several spoofing techniques. These emails also come with infected attachments and when downloaded or clicked can compromise the security of your system.
Therefore, educating your employees about such attacks saves your organization from cyber-attacks. It also makes them aware of fake email attacks so that they will not become prey to any type of email threats.
- End-to-End Encryption
When your organization is sending emails without encrypting, it only means one thing- “Letting some third party read the private conversation exclusive to your organization.” When this happens to give an opportunity for cybercriminals to penetrate the affairs of your organization and steal from you.
- Spot Spam Emails at the Source Level
It is important to be able to spot spam emails at the source level before they reach employees’ mailboxes. This can be done by having the best spam filtering algorithms that use high-level email authentication standards to check every email before sending/forwarding them.
- Restrict Downloading
Restrict every member of your organization from downloading any files that come with attached and suspicious sources by blocking access to such sources.
- Implement Multi-Factor Authentication
Implement multi-factor authentication to protect your email account.
Use Email Security Solutions: Deploy an email security solution that can prevent users from clicking on a malicious link or opening an attachment that contains malware.
- Password Management
By ensuring your employees manage and secure their passwords such as using upper- and lower-case letters, special characters, etc., you can ensure that all the systems are secured with hard-to-guess passwords. This helps in reducing brute force attacks to gain access to their system.
The Bottom Line
When businesses and organizations proactively adopt these security measures, it can protect from email-based cyber-attacks and significantly diminish their risk of falling victim to scammers.
Cyber Cops offers a solution to every type of cyber security. We protect your business from threats, ensuring efficiency in your operation. Cyber Cops, your trusted security partner!