The importance of email in business communication
Email remains one of the most vital tools in modern business communication. In fact, Canadians dedicate a significant portion of their digital time to checking email — whether on desktops, laptops, or mobile devices. According to CIRA, 44% of users catch up on email while using desktops or laptops, and 42% do the same on smartphones, matching time spent on social media.
As the workplace evolves — with remote work and hybrid models becoming the norm — the importance of Email Management has grown rapidly. Businesses of all sizes now rely on email not just for internal communications, but also to engage with current customers, prospects, and partners.
The Surge in Email-Based Phishing Attacks
With the rise in remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cyber threats have also intensified. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), phishing attacks — particularly those targeting emails and cloud-based services — have surged significantly. These threats pose a serious risk to business continuity and data security, especially for companies without proper email protection protocols in place.
As you can see the trend above, the number of phishing attacks has grown since March 2020 when the pandemic started getting worse.
What is the phishing and how it works?
Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information or data, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details or other sensitive details, by impersonating oneself as a trustworthy entity in a digital communication. Typically carried out by email spoofing, instant messaging, and text messaging, phishing often directs users to enter personal information at a fake website which matches the look and feel of the legitimate site.
1. The phisher finds a vulnerable website and upload his phishing kit. Usually a phishing kit is a copy of the legitimate site login page (Google, Facebook, Dropbox…) modified so that the credentials are posted to a small (PHP) script that sends the stolen credentials to the phisher and logs the victim to the real site.
2. The phisher lures its victim to his fake login page by sending emails. For example they might ask the victim to login to get free stuff, increase quota or review some sort of issue.
3. The victim visits the phishing page, inputs her login and password. Those credentials are processed by the PHP script that redirects the unsuspecting victims to the real site.
4. The PHP script sends the stolen credentials to an email address (known as a email dropbox) controlled by the phisher.
5. The phisher gets a notification that an email is in his inbox, he logs in, retrieves the stolen credentials and hijacks the victim account.
How can we prevent from these cyber-attacks?
DO NOT click on links
There is one way you can verify if the link you got is legitimate or not. If you use a product or service from Microsoft and you got a product advertisement email, DO NOT click on links. Instead, go to Microsoft official website and check out the product or service information from there. You will see the same information there if the email is legitimate.
There is another way for desktop users. Many desktop email clients and web browsers will show a link’s target URL in the status bar while hovering the mouse over it. Try to use this feature at all time before you click and go into any links. This behavior, however, may in some circumstances be overridden by the phisher. Equivalent mobile apps generally do not have this preview feature.
USE a browser filtering extension
There are browser extensions that grade search engine results based on known characteristics or behaviors and may even prevent you from navigating to malicious sites. Generally, sites will be graded on a scale from safe to suspicious to high risk.
USE an Anti-Phishing software
There are a lot of anti-phishing software that support various platforms, such as Windows, Mac, and Android. For example, Eset Security provides not only anti-virus features on PC platform but also anti-phishing features for mobile devices, such as tracking websites to verify if the websites are legitimate.
What should you do if you accidently clicked on the link from the phishing email?
Disconnect your device from the Internet
Once you click on a phishing link, your computer is most likely compromised by a hacking tool without you recognizing. Disconnect the computer from the Internet to prevent the hacker to take precious data from you or lock up the computer.
Backup your precious files
After disconnecting your device from the Internet, now it is time to backup your precious files. Get an external hard disk drive and move the files to the disk.
Scan your computer with anti-virus and malware software
Once you secured the files, try to install anti-virus and malware software and run the software to detect any suspicious files or programs installed on your device.
Protect Your Communications with Turbo IT Solutions
At Turbo IT Solutions, we specialize in helping businesses across Canada implement smart, secure, and scalable Email Management systems. From spam filtering and encryption to phishing protection and archiving, we ensure your email infrastructure supports productivity while guarding against threats.
Reset your credential
Lastly, reset your account credential on your computer and email. If you are using the same credential for other accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and bank, please change those as well.
For more information please contact us
Phone: (604) 757-9823
Email: [email protected]
Submit a note: https://turboitsolutions.com/contact/
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