Spear Phishing & Smishing Attacks: How to Protect Your Business

Cyber scams are no longer targeted at consumers only — they're a growing threat to businesses of all sizes as well. From email spear phishing to mobile device smishing, cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated in how they target organizations, often going after unsuspecting employees to gain access to sensitive data.

Estimated read time: 3 minutes

Defend Your Business from Hackers

As business owners like you function in a digital world, you must consider protecting all the equipment involved in your daily operations—servers, networks, computers, mobile devices and more from cyber attacks. Cyber criminals are becoming increasingly more advanced in their techniques of gaining access to valuable information. Adam Jurgens, Hamilton Account Executive, explains in a recent radio interview how bad actors aren't just looking for your personal information; they want your business credentials, and they are using more advanced techniques to get it. Take a listen to learn more about mobile device smishing and a term that might be new to you, email spear phishing and how you can protect your business from these advanced attacks.

Watch Time: 4:14

As Adam explains, once hackers gain access to your email account, they can potentially reach business files. The risks are even higher if your organization uses cloud platforms. In some cases, hackers may even try to extract financial information by impersonating themselves as a vendor bank to trick you into providing them with sensitive information or even making unauthorized payments.

Hamilton offers a variety of tools you can implement to safeguard your assets from the aforementioned concerns, among others. We specialize in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) systems, enhanced email filtering as well as enterprise-level employee training services. Additionally, we can deploy phishing simulations to help educate your staff on what these scams may look like. Remember, protecting your business from these threats is an ongoing, proactive process.

Protect Your Business from Smishing Texts

It's important to give considerable thought to your company's mobile devices. Likely, your organization utilizes technology that keeps your employees connected when they are working remotely or in the field. While this technology is very beneficial for all organizations, it also opens up more risk for cybercriminals to gain access to your business through more entry points.

One tactic rising in popularity amongst hackers is a scam known as smishing. Smishing is defined as scam messages sent via SMS or messaging apps. Oftentimes these messages share a URL link and provide you with details encouraging you to click on the link. Once you do, this provides the hacker with access to your device, including your files and other sensitive information.

How do you protect your business and prevent access via this tactic? It all comes down to education and helping your employees know the right steps to take should they receive a text asking for sensitive information. At a minimum, we suggest that you do not respond and do not click on any links. Instead, contact the company directly through official channels or reach out to your IT partner such as Hamilton for assistance in how to proceed.

Spear Phishing: It's Personal

As we mentioned before, while you may be familiar with the term phishing, which is fraudulent emails designed to trick you into clicking malicious links or giving up your login credentials, today's phishing campaigns are more advanced and much more dangerous. Enter the word spear phishing: a form of social engineering that uses personalized email messages to appear as a trusted entity. As such, spear phishing attacks prove to be highly effective and difficult to prevent.

Hackers don't just sit at a computer looking for individuals to target; they create advanced computer programs to blast personalized emails to millions of email addresses at once hoping that as many recipients as possible will take the bait. Unlike phishing, which casts a wide net, spear phishing is a targeted technique used in mass to steal information.

Protect Your Business from Cyber Attacks

So, how can you protect your business, its assets and employees against spear phishing and smishing?

Implement Advanced Email Security
Use advanced filtering tools and security controls to keep phishing emails from ever reaching your inbox.

Invest in Endpoint Protection
Deploy EDR security software on your devices to detect and neutralize threats before they cause harm.

Implement Identity Threat Detection and Response (IDTR)
Hamilton's industry leading EDR solution includes IDTR functions, which focus specifically on protecting your identity assets such as user credentials, access tokens and authentication workflows.

Educate Your Team
Training employees is one of the most effective ways to prevent cyber threats. Make sure your team knows how to recognize suspicious emails, texts, and other communication tactics used by scammers.

Respond Quickly to Incidents
If a suspicious message slips through or an employee clicks on something they shouldn't, time is critical. Contact a cybersecurity professional like Hamilton immediately to assess the situation, contain the threat and restore system integrity.

The best way to deal with cyber threats is to prevent them in the first place. But if something does go wrong, don't try to handle it alone. Reach out to our experts who can help you mitigate the damage and get your systems back to normal as quickly as possible.