subject: Alleviate Possible Phishing Threats With Anti Phishing Software [print this page] Even after so many campaigns and public warnings against phishing, a significant percentage of people still fall for phishing scams. This shows that there are still people with dangerous levels of ignorance. This is a major concern for enterprises because a small slip can have a negative impact on a company's brand and reputation. They can potentially lead to significant financial losses in the future due to lost customer trust and decline in shareholder value.
In such a scenario, the current products and services such as Employee awareness programs and anti-phishing technologies offer only a limited protection against such attacks. This is because it addresses the "process and technology" aspect of security while what is required is a solution that can adequately address 'person's risk'. Since phishing is a criminal strategy employing both social engineering and technical deception in order to steal personal, identity and financial data from unsuspecting employees, the anti phishing tool should be such a one that helps to arm employees against phishing attacks and create a prioritized action plan to alleviate possible threats.
Employees are the greatest asset of any organization and therefore it becomes even more necessary to protect their most valuable assets from becoming phishing victims. Hence, a best of breed anti phishing software must possess the following features:
* To help understand user behavior and effectiveness of the People controls across the enterprise
* Assist organizations quantify the potential risks of social engineering
* Provide flexible reporting capabilities with integration back into the organization's key performance indicator framework
* Provide a roadmap for building security awareness and training within the organization
* Identify weakness within People, Process and Technology links, allowing prioritization of remediation efforts through effective benchmarking and maturity analysis
* Generate a Teaching Moment that provides a safe, customized learning experience to users resulting in increased employee awareness and knowledge that helps protect the sensitive information entrusted to them
Such a phishing diagnostic solution proactively educates users and helps them identify phishing attacks so that they can avoid becoming Phish baits in the future. It simulates a phishing attack and captures user's potential reaction to a real attack. It further leverages the teaching moment created based on the user's response and generates an action plan that can be implemented to avoid future pitfalls. Thus, it helps organizations to build the first line of defense by increasing an employee's phishing awareness.
Thus, the phishing diagnostic solution helps to evaluate the readiness of employees against phishing and social engineering attacks thereby playing a vital role in an organization's anti-phishing strategy.
