THEY ARE OUT THERE…
Phishing emails lure you to ‘click’ on potentially damaging links that can lead hackers to penetrate your networks.
They are everywhere.
People are often caught out when in a hurry and may caught off guard as many of us have Outlook or other Mail applications that have both work emails and personal mails options and the smaller screen displays making it even more difficult to spot malicious phishing attacks.
Mobile phishing rates have doubled for Lookout users of Office 365 and G Suite. This is a serious problem.
PHISHING EMAILS AND YOUR SMARTPHONE
The other issue is, Mobile phishing extends beyond email to SMS, MMS, messaging platforms, and social media apps.
Attacks are technically simple but novel in their approach. They seek to exploit human trust along social networks using personal context. For example, a parent would click without hesitation on a message saying their daughter has been in an accident at school.
In a report published in 2011, IBM revealed that mobile users are three times more likely to fall for phishing scams compared to desktop users.
This claim was based on accessed log files found on Web servers used to host websites involved in phishing campaigns.
Almost a decade later, we continue to see different organizations reporting an increased trend in phishing attacks targeting the mobile market.
Surprisingly, phishers seem to have tipped the scales to a new preferred target: iPhone users. A leading mobile security solutions provider, has observed that iOS users experience twice as many phishing attacks compared to their Android counterparts.
SO WHATS THE SOLUTION?
Firstly, as far as emails are concerned……the use of an Email security suite is a must. All emails that use your domain name would be ‘washed’ by services that outperform the spam filters from Microsoft and Google. Therefore, potentially malicious emails are blocked at source so won’t be delivered in the first instance.
All the other types of attacks directly to smartphones may be blocked by having a security application on the device itself. This includes Antivirus, web scanning and Mobile Device Management software running on the device.
Your mobile phone is as an easy target to cause problems as any computer or laptop device and must be treated with the same due diligence when it comes to security.
Your IT provider needs to be up to date with the suite of applications that can protect mobiles and tablets alike for being used to infiltrate company networks.
MAXIMUM NETWORKS
Get in touch with the Maximum Networks team team today on 0330 102 7444 or using our contact form