Cybercrime is a business. Phishing scams aren’t just sent by hackers living in their mom’s basement anymore. Phishing has turned into a billion-dollar international operation. According to the Federal Trade Commission, phishing is one of the most popular scams to get sensitive information for individuals and companies alike. For small to mid-sized businesses, one phishing email could result in a data breach, lost finances, and a damaged reputation.
AI-generated phishing features, compromised branding efforts, and hacked third-party operations make accessing your information too easy, and phishing emails too difficult to uncover. All it takes is one employee clicking on a link to forego access to network passwords, install ransomware, or surrender a customer’s social security number.
What’s even worse? These phishing emails are getting harder and harder to spot. But the good news is that training your team how to spot the most common red flags can drastically decrease your organization’s exposure.
Here are seven of the biggest phishing red flags—and how to outwit the bad guys before it's too late.
More often than not, cybercriminals impersonate someone you know or a credible and respected organization or individual to gain your trust. While an email may appear to come from a legitimate source, it’s all in the details.
What to watch for:
Actionable Tip: Always hover over the sender’s email to see the entire address. If anything looks off, it is. According to UCLA’s cybersecurity experts, email spoofing is one of the most effective phishing tools—and one of the easiest to detect with due diligence.
Trusted companies don’t send emails filled with errors. Phishing emails are riddled with bad punctuation, awkward phrasing and typos.
For example:
These types of malaprops are common in scams sent from overseas and/or via automated homeless bots. They’re sloppy but they’re also calculated. Scammers use these types of typos to bypass getting sent to spam, or only wanting to attract readers who are that gullible.
Actionable Tip: Read every email word-for-word, out loud. If it doesn’t sound right, don’t click. In addition, train your employees to know this and forward all suspicious emails to IT.
Links are how most phishing attempts occur. Although a link may say it’s directing you to the login screen or a password reset, it instead allows the hacker to take you where the scam seems it should go—a form on a website that enables credential harvesting.
Before Clicking, Always:
According to CISA, phishing URLs are often faked by reputable brands, but the links go to fake pages with credential-harvesting forms.
Urgency is a common tactic of phishing emails that abrogates your better judgment. Phishing emails can threaten IMMEDIATE account deactivation or missed deadlines.
Why it Works:
Actionable Tip: Always personalize emails when you can. Even if you’re sending a company-wide reminder about the holiday party this Friday, indicate that you know they replied to your save the date or something similar.
Attachments come as invoices, receipts, resumes, expense reports. But these attachments could also be malware, ransomware, or trojans.
What makes an attachment suspicious?
One of the biggest ransomware incidents started when an HR person opened an email that said it came from a job applicant. In reality, it was a recruiter with a macro Word document embedded to cause chaos.
Actionable Tip: Never open unsolicited attachments (unless you’ve confirmed they are valid)—especially if they come from somewhere you don’t recognize or someone out of character.
A personalized message usually addresses you by name or references specific information. Generic greetings like “Dear User,” “Dear Customer,” or “Dear Employee” can be a sign that the email was sent to thousands of recipients.
Think twice when you see:
Actionable Tip: Allow your employees to avoid falling into the scam trap so criminals don’t get any money and the info they need to steal identities and ruin lives. Additionally, educate them to report their sensitivity online.
Phishing attempts sometimes promise cash, prizes and free gifts.
Don’t believe the hype:
Fraudsters prey on your emotions: money, equity, fear of lost opportunity or curiosity. Phishing attacks can come from fake accounts of reputable brands with links to paid-for surveys or internal departments with names like “Rewards” or “IT Gifts.”
According to the FTC, many fall victim and willingly give up their personal information in response to these hoaxes.
Even with all these red flags, phishing emails can be deceptive. Here’s how to create a more resilient workplace culture around cybersecurity:
When it comes to avoiding phishing schemes, it’s about having the right educated team. Phishing has been around so long and your employee’s consciousness should be aware of how to spot it.
With isolved People Cloud’s Learning & Grow (an LMS) , you can provide your team with access to 95,000+ courses in compliance, workplace safety, business skills and leadership to empower your team with the confidence to avoid a scam that could cripple your business.
Key Offerings:
Whether you’re the HR Director in charge of such training or the business owner/CEO looking for peace of mind, Learn & Grow is the scalable, customized solution for 21st century employee training.
What’s your next move?
Don’t be another statistic.
Educate your employees. Protect your company. Explore Learn & Grow now to stop intrusions before they start.
Phishing scams cost time, trust, financials, and momentum within your organization, in addition to monetary losses. By installing such awareness training and addressing the red flags, your employees can be your best defense against cybersecurity concerns. By taking care, your employees can be a formidable opponent against any type of cybercrime.
One click can open up a data breach—or stop one from ever occurring.
Be aware, be careful, be safe.
Platinum Group is your trusted partner in human capital management. We deliver tailored workforce solutions, including the full isolved People Cloud platform, to streamline operations and free your team to do what they do best.
Schedule a demo or learn more at platinum-grp.com