What does anti-phishing software do? 

Phishing is one of the most common cyberattacks you’ll encounter. It’s a simple concept: someone pretends to be someone they’re not by spoofing a website or an email. They ask for personal information, then steal that information.

U.S. consumers lost $5.8 billion to fraud last year, with the vast majority being impostor schemes (including phishing). It’s a huge issue, particularly for businesses. One click through from a co-worker, and you might be dealing with a massive data breach or ransom attack.

Fortunately, there are measures you can take.

Fighting back against phishing

No organization is entirely impervious to phishing, but it starts with awareness. You need to make sure your employees know what phishing is and how it works, and you need to conduct regular blind tests to ensure no one is falling for them.

You can also drastically limit the volume of phishing attempts you have to deal with by using anti-phishing software.

Anti-phishing software screens everything in your inbox and filters many bad actors. Think of it as a security checkpoint for your email: the email walks up, presents its identification, is checked for anything suspicious, and then passes through. It’s not 100% foolproof, but it can stop many issues at the door.

Trained employees can often identify the worst phishing offenders—completely different domain names, weird-looking links, and the like. But software can catch more subtle changes that might not be immediately visible (for example, changing a lowercase L to an uppercase I).

Anti-phishing software can spot patterns and is usually tied to a more extensive blacklist of bad domains and known shady mail servers.

Using anti-phishing software

There’s a lot of anti-phishing software on the market, and it can be challenging to choose which to go with. Fortunately, Microsoft has built-in protection on all its products. Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is the baseline for anti-phishing, while Defender works with 365 versions to provide enhanced security. You can build custom email policies, enable spoof protection, and more.

Not sure what exactly you need? We can help. Let us set you up with the phishing protection your organization needs. Contact TeamLogic IT today.