Phishing is a type of social engineering attack in which an attacker impersonating a reliable entity tricks someone into opening an email, instant message or text message.
Phishing attacks can have a number of dangerous outcomes, such as the installation of malware, theft of user data or system compromise. To effectively counteract phishing attempts, an organized and comprehensive phishing incident response plan is essential for protecting against them.
Detection
Phishing is a serious threat to any organization, so it’s essential that companies have an incident response plan in place for any phishing attack that could breach their defenses. Doing this helps organizations reduce the damage done to their reputation as well as their business continuity.
D3 helps safeguard data by authenticating all emails. As part of this process, D3 analyzes email attachments, external IPs and URLs against threat intelligence sources to assess their authenticity and risk.
D3 can identify hosts affected by malware by scanning through the original email domain’s routing information to check for IP addresses known to host it, as well as looking at its properties. This is especially helpful during a mass phishing campaign where one email is being sent out multiple times to multiple recipients.
Additionally, by registering your contacts with DMARC, any phishing emails you receive are much more likely to get filtered out. This provides your organisation with even greater peace of mind when dealing with this serious threat.
Containment
Phishing attacks are one of the most destructive cyberattacks an organization can endure. They may be used to obtain login credentials, credit card information and personal details without permission.
Smart organizations plan ahead and craft strategies and procedures to combat phishing attempts. Doing so helps the company reduce exposure to risk, minimize damage, and quickly resume normal operations.
Phishing attacks are social engineering crimes in which an attacker impersonates a trusted entity to trick their victims into opening an email, instant message or text message. Once opened, the recipient may be encouraged to click on malicious links or attachments that can lead to malware installation, freezing of their system or the exposure of sensitive data.
Eradication
Eradication is the final stage of phishing incident response, where you take steps to resolve the underlying issue. This may include wiping or re-imageing affected system(s), password resets, application and security patching, etc., depending on how severe it was initially.
Eradicating phishing attacks is a complex task, and the approach you take will depend on the specifics of your organization and available technology and expertise. However, there are some universal elements to consider as part of an efficient security incident eradication checklist which can make this phase run more smoothly and successfully.
As a first step, create a list of users who received the phishing email. This can serve as your starting point for further investigation.
Mitigation
Phishing continues to pose a significant danger for organizations of all sizes and types. It can lead to malware installation, system disruption, or theft of intellectual property and money.
Accurately detecting and investigating phishing attacks is a necessary step in order to reduce risks in your organization. Here’s how to do it correctly while adhering to regulatory standards and cybersecurity laws.
Begin your investigation by identifying all users and identities who received the phishing email. This will give you a list to work through during further analysis.
The next step should be sending an alert to the relevant IT team. Doing this gives IT managers insight into how widespread and severe the phishing attack was.
This process also gives security teams the ability to take action to contain phishing incidents, such as blocking malicious attachments or removing email from user inboxes. This reduces operational pain for security personnel and helps avoid account takeovers in environments where users reuse their credentials across multiple cloud-connected services.
