Critical Insights and Essential Tools to Increase Your Protection
By Chris Bierasinski, VP of Business Development
IT Insights of Rochester is a local IT service provider offering managed IT security services and technology solutions in Rochester and nearby areas. Visit our cybersecurity protection services page for an overview of the various levels of protection we offer.
This is the second entry in a four-part series of articles. Our previous post introduced the various security service structures offered by IT Insights and provided a review of the core tools that we leverage. In this post of the mini-series, we explore significant threats targeting small entities and focus on user cybersecurity.
NAVIGATING THE PHISHING THREAT LANDSCAPE
This article holds significant importance within the series, addressing a critical aspect of IT security services – your end users. The upcoming set of tools plays a pivotal role in safeguarding against the most prevalent channels through which businesses and users face attacks.
Phishing, an escalating concern, becomes particularly alarming when examining relevant statistics. It is a cyber-attack method where threat actors deceive individuals by posing as trustworthy entities through emails, text messages, or phone calls to extract sensitive information or gain network access.
For businesses, falling prey to phishing can lead to severe consequences, including data breaches, financial losses, reputational damage, operational disruptions, and potential intellectual property theft.
Effectively mitigating phishing risks involves the implementation of cybersecurity measures, increasing employee awareness, and cultivating a culture of skepticism towards unsolicited communications.
Let’s explore essential tools to strengthen your organization’s security by educating and outfitting your end users.
ROBUST EMAIL SECURITY AND USER TRAINING
In our second level of protection, our focus shifts to strengthening email security with a suite of comprehensive tools.
Phishing Attack Prevention
As previously mentioned, phishing attacks are among the most common and challenging threats to defend against. Even with multiple security measures in place, users can unknowingly divulge sensitive information creating challenging recovery situations.
As the saying goes, knowledge is power. We focus on teaching users to recognize phishing attacks, so they can protect themselves and their teams from potential risks.
We provide monthly training with short videos on cyber-attacks and phishing using the best-in-class ID Agent BullPhish ID program. We offer extra training to employees who need it, like those who can access financial data, personal information, and important systems. These courses equip users with the knowledge to recognize and thwart phishing attempts. We also conduct quarterly simulated phishing attacks to assess further and improve user response, recording successes and failures. Internal stakeholders receive comprehensive reports of these fake phishing exercises.
Email Security Tools and Phishing Filtering
Our next tool, Graphus, works with your email to filter and block threats before they reach your inbox. It also adds banners to external messages for extra protection. Users also receive alerts about unusual emails that point out flaws in the sender domain, the style of email, or content that is indicative of a phishing attempt. It is extremely easy for us to set this up for every single user in your organization, taking about an hour regardless of the size of your organization.
It creates a layer of protection that brings awareness to end users, who should pause to consider the credibility of an email and take the necessary steps to alert internal teams and us of the threat posed. As an added bonus, Graphus enables collective security against mass email attacks. If two users, from any of the clients for whom we support and manage email, identify an email as an attack, the system will automatically remove the email from the inboxes of all affected users. This implies that Graphus becomes more robust with every user utilizing the platform.
Our strong email security measures greatly reduce the risk of phishing attacks and strengthen your digital defenses.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Finally, we leverage Duo for 2FA for added security, seamlessly integrating with other platforms to streamline the user experience. 2FA and MFA (multi-factor authentication) are potent security measures that should be mandatory for all users, given their exceptional level of security. (Learn why 2FA is so important here.) Duo is quickly becoming, if not already a requirement like anti-virus was before. No organization should pass on the opportunity to have 2FA enabled on any system that allows it.
Once 2FA is enabled and enforced, it has a multiplicative factor on your overall cyber security. No single piece of our offerings is as immediately impactful on your overall security as 2FA.
FORTIFYING DEFENSE AND AWARENESS
This collection of tools stands out as especially crucial for organizations seeking to enhance their cybersecurity posture. A highly recommended starting point, these tools not only significantly reduce the frequency of user-facing attacks but, more importantly, bolster users’ understanding of various attack types and their vigilance against potential threats. Through consistent training facilitated by KnowBe4, reinforced by Graphus, and fortified by the robust security measures of Duo, users gain the necessary skills to effectively thwart malicious attacks targeting the most vulnerable aspects of the organization. These tools are crucial for building awareness and resilience against tricky tactics, especially since social engineering goes beyond regular firewalls.
