Over 90% of Cyber-Attacks Begin with Phishing - How Can Attacks be Stopped?

Unfortunately, whatever area a company works in, it is bound to come across a phishing attempt at some point. But there are ways of mitigating these insidious, human-centric attacks, and an MSP is ideally placed to deliver them.

An MSP is a vital cog in the wheel of phishing prevention, but how best can an MSP ensure their client has the best phishing prevention? As the adage says, “Knowledge is power.” To help an MSP find the best fit for their clients, TitanHQ has produced a comprehensive guide to phishing. Here, TitanHQ offers a taster of what that report holds.

Examples of Cyber-Attacks Initiated by Phishing

Knowing what a client is up against is always a good place to start, so here are a few cyberattacks that were initiated by phishing:

Login Credential Theft: If a hacker can steal login credentials, they have the keys to the castle. Phishing emails are used to steal passwords, and inevitable cyberattacks initiated by phishing can even circumvent MFA (multi-factors of authentication). Phishing emails typically contain a malicious link, with research showing that 52% of these emails use a well-known brand name, like Microsoft, to lull users into a false sense of security.

Once a credential is lost, even if the employee has few privileges, the result can be devastating for a company; hackers often install malware onto the network, resulting in data loss, non-compliance, and loss of control.

Ransomware Infection: Phishing is often the start of a ransomware infection; spear phishing, a highly targeted form of phishing, is renowned for initiating a ransomware infection. Spear phishing attackers often target those with privileged access rights, such as an IT administrator.

Like its non-spear phishing counterpart, the spear phishing email will contain a malicious link that will result in stolen login credentials. The result is entry into sensitive areas of a network, allowing the cybercriminal to install ransomware and steal data to hold the company to ransom.

Compromised Bank Account: phishing emails are often just the start of a multipart attack scenario. A phishing email, including phishing variants such as spear phishing, clone phishing, and clone phishing, may ultimately take anyone clicking a malicious link to a fake website.

Cybercriminals are experts at creating highly believable-looking websites, crafted to look exactly like a well-known brand, such as a productivity portal like Microsoft 365 or a company's bank login page. The phishing attackers behind scams will often go to lengths to build up intelligence on their target, including who they bank with, who supplies the company, and the type of cloud apps employees use.

They then use this intelligence to create highly effective cyber-attacks. In the case of a compromised bank account, cyber attackers fake the login page of a bank or other payment app, like PayPal, using a malicious link in a phishing page to take the person to the fake website where they are requested to enter their credentials. Even second-factor authentication is no longer safe, with hackers now able to circumvent these additional layers of security.

Read TitanHQ’s full report, “A Phishing Expedition: Why Phishing is the #1 Threat to Your Clients’ Security," for expert insights into how an MSP can help protect clients with the right phishing solution.

How MSPs Can Keep Clients Safe from Phishing-Initiated Cyber-Attacks?

MSPs can provide the layers of protection needed to stamp our advanced phishing attacks. If the MSP chooses a solution such as TitanHQ’s PhishTitan, they can offer these layers as part of an integrated solution that fits seamlessly into an MSP tech stack. Essential layers of phishing prevention include the following:

Make Clients Aware: Awareness of phishing is a great place to start to educate your clients about the dangers of phishing. If the client understands the complex nature and multi-stage scenarios of phishing-initiated cyberattacks, they can appreciate the severe nature of modern cyber threats.

Add Phishing Prevention Solutions to Your Tech Stack: Complex phishing attacks often use sophisticated social engineering and require a multi-layered prevention approach. Solutions that look for malware signatures or common phrases in email content can no longer be relied upon to detect sophisticated phishing attacks. Instead, an MSP should look to carry an integrated solution suite that uses AI-enabled technologies to detect even the cleverest phishing attack.

Implement Robust Authentication: While some phishing attackers can circumvent second-factor authentication, these attacks are still uncommon. A full authentication policy and ensuring that apps and data are accessed using the principle of least privilege is an essential layer of protection.

Simulated Phishing Exercises: Training employees to look for the signs of phishing is an essential tool in the anti-phishing armory of an MSP. A report from TitanHQ into automated simulated phishing identified a 92% drop in phishing susceptibility when employees were trained using an automated security awareness training solution.

A TitanHQ report into automated simulated phishing identified a 92% drop in phishing susceptibility when employees were trained using an automated security awareness training solution.

PhishTitan, an Integrated, Multi-Layered Phishing Prevention Solution

PhishTitan, an integrated multi-layered anti-phishing solution, is designed with an MSP in mind. PhishTitan works by the principles of Defense-in-Depth.

Defense-in-depth is based on applying multiple layers of integrated security technologies to detect and prevent evasive and evolving threats. Phish-Titan is cloud-based, ideal for deployment and management by an MSP. Its phishing prevention and remediation are AI-driven and powered by LLM intelligence.

The layers of protection offered by PhishTitan include the following:

AI-Driven Threat Intelligence

Machine learning detection models predict and detect malicious content that conventional phishing prevention misses. Phishing emails that contain zero-minute URLs that are yet to be identified as a threat can be detected by the AI-driven phishing prevention solution PhishTitan. PhishTitan is trained from data aggregated from a massive threat corpus. This data helps identify dangerous URLs and fake web pages.

Real-Time Threat Analysis

Threat analysis must be real-time, as phishing threats are constantly changing. PhishTitan performs detection and prevention in real-time so that even emerging threats are stopped.

URL Rewrite Detection

PhishTitan applies URL analysis to detect malicious links in phishing emails, then uses this intelligence to protect against these phishing links using a unique ‘Link Lock’ service, where PhishTitan inspects and rewrites URLs, preventing employees from navigating to fake websites.

Post-Delivery Remediation

If a phishing message manages to enter a user’s inbox, PhishTitan initiates post-delivery remediation. This process monitors emails and removes malicious mail from an inbox.

Time of Click Protection

Post-delivery remediation also applies a secondary protection mechanism called 'time of click' protection. PhishTitan checks the destination of any links in an email to ensure that malicious websites are blocked if a user clicks on a link.

Integration with M365

PhishTitan seamlessly integrates into M365, augmenting and enhancing the Microsoft native security. PhishTitan scans inbound and outbound emails to prevent phishing and the loss of sensitive data. PhishTitan is an API for deep integration with M365 to augment more conventional email security from EOP and MS Defender; no MX changes are required by PhishTitan, making it a more straightforward deployment for an MSP.
 

PhishTitan for MSPs

PhishTitan is designed to fit seamlessly into an MSP technology stack. TitanHQ supports multiple integration options, granular policy controls, and a full reporting suite to help demonstrate compliance. PhishTitan can be set up and managed in minutes. PhishTitan provides an MSP with the multiple layers of anti-phishing technology needed to ensure clients are fully protected. 

Read TitanHQ’s full report, “A Phishing Expedition: Why Phishing is the #1 Threat to Your Clients’ Security," for expert insights into how an MSP can help protect clients with the right phishing solution.

Learn more about what PhishTitan can do for your business and book a free demo today.