How to keep your team vigilant

Email is invaluable in most businesses – unfortunately it is also the cyber criminals favourite tool.  It’s virtually free to send millions of malicious emails that are designed to trick your team into clicking a link and stealing their passwords, or to deliver a malicious attachment that looks like an invoice but really contains malware to infect your network. 

Technology and tools can help to block and filter many of these emails, but some will always get through as cyber criminals continuously adapt their techniques to try to defeat the protections.  As a result, your team will always have an important part to play – to identify suspicious emails in their inbox and think before they click – the human firewall is the last line of defence.

Malicious email attacks such as Phishing campaigns makes up a huge proportion of all cyber attacks launched each year. A report from threat researchers Cymulate (June 2022) shows that phishing attacks were used by cyber criminals to gain initial access into their victims computer systems and networks more than any other form of cyber crime in 2021, making up 56% of all cyber attacks that took place that year.

SERS Reporting tool in action in Microsoft Outlook

One great way to keep your team on the lookout for malicious email and disrupt the criminal’s plans is to encourage the reporting of suspicious emails to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).  

The NCSC Suspicious Email Reporting Service disrupts the criminals targeting your business and helps keep the risk of phishing and malicious emails front of mind with your team

SERS enables anyone to report a suspicious email to the NCSC.  These reports are analysed by the service to identify any malicious websites that the email links to – and then to remove those sites from the internet in order to disrupt the cyber criminals plans.

Microsoft now offers a free plugin to Outlook which enables a user to report a phishing or suspicious email to SERS with the click of the mouse.  This not only helps thwart the criminals, but it also helps keep your staff mindful of the risks posed by malicious emails and gives them an easy step to take in order to identify threats to your business.

Learn more about the Office 365 SERS plugin or the NCSC SERS service

Suspicious emails can also be reported directly to your email provider in the app or browser you use to read your emails. Reporting every email that appears malicious not only protects you and your data, but can also help prevent others from falling victim to the scam. Informing your Security and IT department about any messages that could be dangerous can keep your colleagues safe and protect your business from a cyber attack.

Cyber Coach provides Security Awareness Training and managed Cyber Security services for our clients. Learn more with a free consultation with one of our experts today