There is an endless sea of deadly phish circling just beyond your office walls.
If you’ve taken the necessary precautions to protect your business and employees from costly office phishing attacks, you should be applauded. And while the due diligence required to select an email security vendor can take time, many forget to ask what happens to their employees once they step outside the four walls of the office and begin working on their mobile devices. It’s a question that many email phishing companies hope you’ll never ask.
As more and more companies are choosing remote work over the expense of an office, mobile devices have received a lot of extra attention. Why? Mobile devices provide a boatload of convenience, but they can also prove to be one of the most dangerous tools a company uses due to their extreme vulnerability to phishing attacks.
Consider these quick facts about mobile usage:
- 96% of Americans own a cell phone.2
- Every day, 3.9 billion people use email.3
- 46% of all email opens happen on a mobile device.3
- 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.3
By their very nature, mobile devices lack the security of a desktop computer and make us all easy targets for phishing scams. To begin, mobile devices are small and compact, which means that we can’t always notice the same level of details in the emails we answer on our mobile devices. The same is true for the websites we visit on our phones. We generally tend to trust the links on our phones, but the details are difficult to see and mobile views hide things we might otherwise consider to be warning signs. To make matters worse, mobile devices are generally designed to support work that’s “on-the-go”. This fact alone can lead many of us to be a little more careless than we would be at an office computer.
If you believe a hacker can’t do much damage through a mobile app or device, think again. One targeted phishing email can provide a cybercriminal with the information they need to devastate you personally and professionally. In fact, mobile device hackers have…
- Infiltrated bank accounts
- Initiated wire transfers
- Accessed Dropbox accounts containing tax records, credit card information, banking records, and more
- Harvested credentials with embedded malicious links
- Impersonated CEOs in order to blindside unsuspecting employees working remotely
- Perpetrated credit card fraud
Mobile phones are not designed to stop phishing attacks and typical email phishing prevention measures are not able to extend to your mobile devices. There are, however, two easy things you can do to protect your company from mobile phishing attacks. The first is to become educated on the subject. If you’ve come this far, you’re well on your way. We would even like to suggest that you consider what other industry experts have to say. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) is an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm that provides market intelligence and actionable insight to the global IT community. ESG Senior Analyst, Dave Gruber recently explained the importance of mobile email protection in the war against phishing. Learn more by reading his report entitled, Stopping Phishing Attacks: Why Securing Mobile Email Usage Matters.
Another simple step you can take to protect your company is to see the technology in action by scheduling a free demonstration of INKY’s uniquely amazing phish-fighting capabilities. With the help of computer vision, social graphing and computer learning, INKY is has the innovation and expertise to fight phishing on any mobile device. Schedule a demo today.
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INKY® is the emerging hero in the war against phishing. An award-winning cloud-based email security solution, INKY® prevents the most complex phishing threats from disrupting or even immobilizing your company’s day-to-day business operations. Using computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, INKY® is the smartest investment you can make in the security of your organization. INKY® is a proud winner of the NYCx Cybersecurity Moonshot Challenge and finalist in the 2020 RSAC Innovation Sandbox Competition. Learn more about INKY® or request an online demonstration today.
2Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
3Source: https://easysendy.com/blog/mobile-email-open-statistics/