Phishing Simulations with AutoPhish

“Social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls.” Kevin Mitnick

Phishing is a malicious form of internet fraud where the perpetrators attempt to scam victims into providing personal, financial, or corporate information. Typically, this crime happens via email or other online delivery systems, such as text messages and social media platforms. The phishers construct emails or text messages that appear legitimate -- often impersonating financial institutions or large companies -- to solicit and harvest private data from unsuspecting users.

Phishing attacks can be spotted by looking for warning signs like:

• Misspellings
• Generic salutations
• Urgent requests for private information
• Unrecognized attachments
• Links that don't match the text of the email
• Offers of gifts, deals, rewards, or prizes in exchange for divulging personal information

By being aware and taking the time to scrutinize messages before responding with sensitive data, people can significantly reduce their likelihood of falling into the trap of cybercriminals. Athreon’s AutoPhish solution educates your staff on how to identify and handle email phishing attempts.

Spear phishing is a particularly dangerous form of phishing. It is phishing that leverages social engineering wherein fraudsters target individuals or companies by sending them emails asking for tailored information, such as personal data, passwords, or confidential business information. Spear phishing emails are often tricky for recipients to recognize due to their highly personalized approach. The messages appear to come from legitimate sources and contain details that lend credibility to their claims. Often, the authors of these messages will incorporate real names, titles, phone numbers, or email addresses that duped users may mistakenly think is from a legitimate company. It's essential to remain vigilant against these threats by constantly verifying email addresses and never clicking on any links in unsolicited emails, among other tactics.

A phishing simulation is a tool businesses use to increase awareness about how scammers try and fraudulently acquire personal information from their staff. Phishing simulations test employees and train them to recognize phishing attempts by presenting emails or links that look like they could have come from legitimate businesses. These simulated emails can take the form of invoice reminders, shipping confirmations, login requests, and other messages commonly used by malicious actors. During the simulation, users will be encouraged to click on a link or provide personal details within the fictitious emails. If users engage with the email in any way, they will receive feedback that helps them understand what they did wrong and how they can improve in the future. Phishing simulations bolster organizational security by providing essential training and data about employee behavior that can calculate organizational risk — all without any real-world exposure to malicious cyber activity.

Phishing simulations are a valuable tool for businesses as they can help to raise cyber security awareness training among staff and reduce instances of data breaches. By simulating realistic phishing attacks, companies can help employees to understand the methods attackers use and teach them how to strengthen their defenses against such threats. These simulations can also give business leaders valuable insights into which areas of their security need improvement, allowing them to make more informed decisions when developing data protection policies. What’s more, regular staff testing enables businesses to ensure that employees stay up-to-date with the latest cybersecurity threats so they can provide extra guidance where needed.

Phishing simulations are increasingly crucial for companies seeking to lessen the risk of sophisticated cyberattacks. Organizations are at increased risk of devastating data breaches without a comprehensive phishing simulation program. An effective security awareness training program should include simulated phishing emails that engage and educate employees on security threats. Although tackling these challenges may appear daunting, they don’t have to be. Plus, the risk of not phishing your staff can be even more devastating. IBM reports that the average cost per breach exceeded $9 million in the United States in 2022. The cost associated with deploying a phishing simulation program pales in comparison to the cost of not doing so.

Athreon’s AutoPhish solution makes it easy to configure mock phishing campaigns to assess your staff. Our vast phishing email template library allows you to select from various email subjects and levels of phishing difficulty. You choose which of your employees you want to phish, set a launch date, campaign duration, and then our SaaS solution handles the rest. Now you can quickly create realistic phishing campaigns without advanced training and with emails used by real hackers in real-world scenarios.

What’s more, we’ve gamified employee phishing. Our AutoPhish solution rewards your staff when they report phishing attempts via our Microsoft 365/Outlook email plugin. Gamification instills friendly competition among your workforce and makes learning fun. Analytically, our data-driven metrics help you identify who needs more security awareness training. Of course, anyone taking the bait participates in a remedial training session where they watch a brief video to learn about what happened and what they can do to prepare for future phishing attempts.

Remember, it only takes one employee clicking on one bad link to spell disaster in your organization. Fortify your defenses with Athreon’s AutoPhish solution. Contact us for a free consultation at 800.935.0973.