Phishing Prevention
Phishing attacks are a common security threat designed to steal sensitive information like login credentials and financial data. It’s the No. 1 cause of security breaches — but despite all the notoriety, phishing campaigns continue to fool even the most vigilant. Security measures are evolving beyond network-based tools to a dynamic, identity-based zero trust model.
What are Common Types of Phishing Attacks?
Historically, phishing was often conducted by sending mass email campaigns designed to collect credentials. The logic is that if a hacker can reach enough people with a phishing campaign, statistically someone will take the bait. Today's phishing techniques are much more targeted, often incorporating social engineering campaigns in which attackers gather information about their targets through meticulous research and manipulative interactions.
Email Phishing
Email phishing is conducted by sending mass email campaigns imitating a legitimate source to steal sensitive information from a broad group of people. The goal is to trick the recipient into giving away sensitive data or install malware on their system.
Spear Phishing
Spear phishing uses social engineering to collect personal information about a specific individual, such as a target organization’s employee. Attackers use this data to pose as legitimate users, then infiltrate networks and steal sensitive data, install malware, or steal credentials.
Whaling
Whaling is a type of spear phishing attack that targets high-level executives. Attackers often use personalized emails to trick targets into providing sensitive data or making financial transactions. Whaling is concerning because executives have social leverage and direct access to valuable data and highly visible companies.
How Does Spear Phishing Work?
Most modern phishing attacks start with threat actors gathering information about their targets to gain initial unauthorized access into an organization’s networks, and then escalate privileges as they traverse the networks.
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Step 1: Social Engineering
A spear phishing attack begins when an attacker establishes communication with their target. This could happen via phone call or email — there are any number of avenues hackers use to reach out to targets in a way that appears legitimate. -
Step 2: Targeted Phishing
Once an employee has bought into a phishing scam, they’ll typically be taken to a web page where they’ll be asked to provide their credentials. -
Step 3: Lateral Movement
Once the hacker has infiltrated an application, they can use an organization’s internal systems to gain access to additional resources and take over more user accounts — often with privileged access to critical systems.
Phishing for Dummies
Phishing attacks are evolving and so should your defenses. This ebook teaches about new emerging threats, trends affecting attackers, and weaknesses that leave organizations vulnerable. It provides strategies to mitigate these weaknesses, emphasizing the importance of understanding phishing, and introduces Cisco Security solutions for sophisticated defense.
What Are Anti-Phishing Tools?
A Multi-Layered Approach
Anti-phishing solutions utilize both security software and human practices to prevent and remediate phishing attacks.
Phishing Protection Solutions
You need software that provides advanced phishing protection, strong user authentication, granular device visibility, adaptive access policies, and login monitoring.
Employee Awareness
Employees are attackers’ favorite target, which also makes them your first line of defense. Educating them on how to recognize and avoid suspicious emails or links can help prevent phishing attacks.
How to Prevent Phishing Attacks
Because it targets the unpredictable human element of security, phishing sounds scary — but it doesn’t have to be. With a few best practices and security tools in place, organizations can achieve phishing resistance, prevent unauthorized access, and avoid becoming a victim of phishing attacks.
Implement Strong User Authentication
To significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized data access, require multi-factor authentication (MFA). But not all authentication methods are equal. Using WebAuthn or FIDO2 security keys provides the highest level of assurance for secure access. Additionally, Verified Duo Push provides an extra layer of security by requiring users input a unique code from the login device in the Duo Mobile app.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Duo’s Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Leave no user or application behind. Duo supports multiple authentication methods — from Duo Push, to SMS and passcodes, to biometrics and WebAuthn. Choose the authentication method that best fits your security needs.
Duo MFA is available in all Duo editions.
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Duo's User Access Policies
Get granular with your security requirements, with options to set policies for specific user groups either globally or by application.
User access policies are available in all Duo editions, with advanced options in Duo Access and Duo Beyond.
Reduce Reliance on Passwords with Single Sign-On (SSO)
Single sign-on serves as a unified visibility and enforcement point for application-specific policies, while also enabling seamless access to multiple applications with a single set of credentials. With fewer credentials to remember, users are less likely to reuse or create weak passwords that can easily be targeted by hackers.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Duo’s Single Sign-On (SSO)
Let users access any application with a single login experience, protected by Duo’s strong authentication and granular access policies.
Duo SSO is available in all Duo editions.
Create and Maintain a Detailed Device Inventory
It’s hard to prevent access from devices you don’t know about. Visibility into all the devices accessing your resources is a key step in ensuring every access attempt is legitimate.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Duo’s Device Visibility
See every endpoint that’s logging in to your apps, so that you can spot risky devices before they compromise your resources.
Device Visibility is available in all Duo editions. -
Duo Desktop
Monitor laptop and desktop devices to ensure they have the right security protocols in place.
Device Health is available in Duo Advantage and Duo Premier.
Verify Device Trust as Part of the Authentication Workflow
With many different devices accessing company resources, it’s important to ensure they’re all healthy and up-to-date. Compliant devices are less likely to create gaps in security, making them more difficult for hackers to exploit.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Device Access Policies
Manage access permissions based on operating system, encryption status, software version and more.
Device Access Policies are available in all Duo editions, with advanced options in Duo Advantage and Duo Premier. -
Duo’s Trusted Endpoints
Identify corporate-owned vs. personal laptops, desktops and mobile devices, to ensure only devices with the right permissions are accessing critical resources.
Duo’s Trusted Endpoints is available in Duo Premier edition.
Enforce Adaptive Access Policies
Ensure that the right users, with the right devices, are accessing the right applications. By creating granular security policies, you can enforce a least-privilege access model and ensure that users and their devices meet rigorous standards before they can login to critical resources.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Duo’s Adaptive Authentication
Provide conditional access based on context from user roles, device status, user location and more using Duo’s adaptive policy engine.
Adaptive Authentication features are available in all Duo editions, with advanced options in Duo Advantage and Duo Premier.
Continuously Monitor for Unusual Login Activity
Utilize behavioral analytics to monitor the unique access patterns of your users. This practice helps you spot suspicious activity — and stop breaches before they happen.
RELATED DUO FEATURES
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Duo Trust Monitor
Establish baseline access behavior and be notified of anomalous activity, like logins from new devices or unexpected locations.
Duo Trust Monitor is available in Duo Advantage and Duo Premier editions.
Duo offers a very clean self-enrollment process, and has a lot of pre-existing integrations with a variety of products we already use. We were able to quickly deploy the solution to our users, and since haven’t seen any phishing attempts. Read the Customer Story
— Richard Bailey, VP of IT Operations, PruittHealth
Additional Resources
Learn more about modern phishing attacks and what you can do to prevent credential theft.
Related Topics
Passwordless Authentication
Hackers can’t steal a password if there’s no password to steal. Passwordless authentication is becoming a viable and attractive way to reduce credential theft.
Learn More About Passwordless Authentication
Multi-Factor Authentication
Phishing attacks depend on human behavior to be successful — so verifying user identities with strong MFA is the first step in preventing a breach.
Learn More About Duo’s Multi-Factor Authentication
Adaptive Access Policies
Assigning access permissions by application ensures that your most critical resources are also your most protected.
Learn More About Duo’s Adaptive Access Policies
