Phishing Detection Techniques

Phishing attacks are a common threat and are used to launch a variety of cyberattacks. A successful phishing email can lead to a data breach, ransomware infection, or other security incident.

Phishers can accomplish these goals in various ways. Some phishing emails include malicious attachments that install malware on the target’s computer. Others include links to malicious websites that are designed to trick the recipients into entering their login details or installing malware on their computers.

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What is Phishing Detection?

Phishing detection is the practice of identifying phishing emails en route to their intended victim. This enables the organization the block or rapidly respond to the threat, limiting the harm that the emails can cause to the business and its employees.

Types of Phishing Detection Techniques

Phishing attacks are a leading security threat, and cybercriminals use various techniques to slip past an organization’s defenses and trick its users. Below, we take a look at several leading techniques that email security solutions use to identify phishing emails.

AI Phishing Detection

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models can be trained to analyze the text of an email or the websites that it points to. These models will identify common red flags of phishing attacks, such as misspellings, attempts to coerce the recipient, and URL structure and targets. Based on this analysis, the AI model can calculate the risk of whether the email is phishing and whether it should be blocked before it reaches the recipient’s inbox.

Behavior-Based Analysis

Phishing attacks are designed to give the attacker initial access to an organization’s environment by stealing login credentials or infecting a computer with malware. Behavioral analysis looks for unusual and suspicious actions by a user that might be associated with these attacks. For example, an unusual attempt to query large volumes of data from the corporate database could be an attempted data breach using a compromised account.

URL Filtering

Phishing emails commonly include embedded links that point toward phishing pages. These pages could be designed to trick the user into handing over their login credentials or may serve malware to the user.

URL filtering involves examining the links included in an email for likely phishing pages. This includes known malicious URLs, lookalike URLs, or other URLs whose structure or content makes them suspicious.

Email Scanning

Email scanning solutions examine an email’s contents and attachments for signs of phishing content. In addition to some of the techniques mentioned above, these solutions could also inspect an email’s attachments in a sandboxed environment to determine whether they contain malicious content.

Collaboration and Threat Intelligence

 

Phishing attacks are often launched as part of a large-scale campaign, and a company is unlikely to be the first victim of the attack. Collaboration and sharing threat intelligence can help organizations to more quickly and effectively identify and remediate the latest phishing attacks.

Anti-Phishing Solutions

 

Anti-phishing solutions are security tools specifically designed to protect against phishing attacks. Often, these use a combination of techniques to maximize the probability that they will identify and block a phishing email before it reaches its destination.

How to Prevent a Successful Phishing Attack

Some best practices that organizations can implement to protect against phishing attacks include:

  • Education: Since phishing is designed to deceive users into revealing their login credentials or installing malware on their computers. Cybersecurity awareness training can help employees to identify and respond to a suspected phishing email.
  • Account Security: Login credentials are a common threat of phishing attacks and can be used to plant ransomware or steal data. Account security solutions such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strong passwords can reduce the threat of these compromised passwords.
  • Patch Management: Malicious attachments on emails can exploit vulnerabilities to infect a computer and may use other vulnerabilities to gain the access and privileges that they need to perform their attacks. Performing regular patching closes potential security holes before they can be exploited by phishers.
  • Anti-Phishing Solutions: Anti-phishing tools use various techniques to identify and block phishing attacks. By preventing an intrusion from happening, they can eliminate the threat that a phishing email poses to the organization.

Protect Against Phishing with Harmony Email and Collaboration

Phishing is one of the top cyber threats for business. Check Point Harmony Email and Office uses numerous techniques to identify and defend against these types of attacks. Its range of features has earned it the title of Leader in the 2023 Forrester Wave for Enterprise Email Security. You’re welcome to learn more about Harmony Email and Office, and the potential security benefits that it can provide for your organization, by signing up for a demo.

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