Although current providers are involved in a constant war upgrading their filters to spot and stop spam emails ever arriving in client inboxes, this malicious content is still often able to bypass enterprise defences. While it’s true that many spam messages are simple to identify and mostly harmless, they still have the capacity to misuse the time of staff, adding up to valuable hours they could be spending on your business.
Phishing attempts against your firm
Spam can be designed with a more threatening purpose in mind. Content of these missives can also contain phishing tactics, with emails cunningly crafted to trick enterprise staff into taking rash actions. These actions can include parting with sensitive enterprise data, company funds, or personal information directly. They can also involve clicking on links that send recipients to phishing websites, that can effectively impersonate a verified log-in page. When the employee is prompted for their credentials and inputs them, both passwords and usernames are harvested by hackers. Once in possession of these passcodes, malicious operators can use them for deeper penetration levels into your firm’s critical infrastructure.
The latest spear-phishing strategies use the digital footprint of enterprises and their staff to draft ever more authentic-looking messages designed to look and feel legitimate. To enhance the authenticity factor, these attacks will sometimes employ spoof email addresses, that can sidestep spam filters as they appear entirely valid, allowing them to arrive in their intended victim’s company mailbox. As emails appear to come from a trusted source, recipients are more likely to take the requested action and fall for the scheme.
Malware deployment
Another ploy found in spam and phishing emails are malicious links staff are urged to click on. Often, the content of these insidious emails is designed to panic employees into activating links, believing if they don’t, they will get into trouble with their manager, their bank, or even a government agency.
Some malicious campaigns make the entire body copy a link to increase the chance that their victim will click on it. If you see the small white arrow appear wherever you hover your mouse in an email, it is a sure sign it’s a scam. In other nefarious schemes, the link will download a piece of malware onto the local device, or instead of a link there will be an attached file that looks like a standard Word document but contains malicious code causing havoc when downloaded.
Infected computers can enable cybercriminals like ransomware operators to exploit vulnerabilities and deploy further instances of malware, which can then spread to all interconnected devices on your network. When they identify confidential or sensitive data, they can then encrypt it, holding it for ransom until your company pays.
Using a complete security solution
At Galaxkey, we have developed a secure workspace that offers comprehensive email protection. With powerful features such as digital document signing and end-to-end encryption, you can protect your firm against the many varied attacks hidden inside spam content. Get in touch today to discover premium protection levels for your company emails.
