Fraud & Identity Featured Article

PhishMe Solution Protects Small Businesses from Fraud

By Alicia Young Web Editor

It seems like every week fraudsters are coming up with new and improved ways to hack mobile phones and business data bases in order to steal valuable account information. One attack that has remained a tried and true method for fraudsters is phishing (or ‘smishing’ for mobile). That’s why PhishMe, a provider of human phishing defense solutions, has announced the availability of PhishMe Free.

PhishMe Free is a no-cost phishing simulation solution for small businesses of under 500 employees that conditions workers and helps them fortify their defenses against today's advanced cyberattacks, such as ransomware, business email compromise and spear-phishing.

According to findings in the “PhishMe 2016 Enterprise Phishing Susceptibility and Resiliency Report,” 90 percent of network security breaches can be attributed to phishing attacks. With that high of a percentage, it’s clear that no business is safe from cyberthreats. Whether a company is large or small, they’re all susceptible to attack. However, small businesses in particular are at risk, according to the Ponemon Institute’s (News - Alert) “2016 State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Business.” The report found that 55 percent of SMBs have experience a cyberattack in the last 12 months and 50 percent had reported a data breach.

“Every company – regardless of size or resources – should have access to effective cybersecurity solutions,” said Rohyt Belani, co-founder and CEO of PhishMe. “61 percent of cyberattacks target small and medium businesses (SMBs) and the ensuing damages cost, on average, $800,000 USD. To help such organizations shore up their defenses we created PhishMe Free. This solution is tailored specifically for companies with 500 employees or less. The goal is to help SMBs build a conditioned firewall of human sensors to act as a first line of defense against attacks that bypass traditional email filtering technologies.”

As Belani points out, PhishMe Free is all about educating employees and giving them the best tools to detect phishing scams. The solution offers users: fast deployment with an easy to manage SaaS (News - Alert) application; reporting and analytics to easily view risk exposures and monitor progress; real results through a simplified enterprise- grade solution that delivers 18 templates and runs up to 12 scenarios per year; and full access to PhishMe CBT modules, including four compliance modules and 17 interactive modules covering today's biggest threats. The solution also mimics real-life attack tactics with threat-based scenario content and training templates for end users.

There are obvious benefits here when it comes to helping employees learn about cyberattacks on the Web. However, this knowledge can also carry over into the mobile realm. With so many people using their phones and various other mobile devices for work purposes, there’s a lot of sensitive data housed outside of the office. All an employee would have to do is open a fraudulent email or go to a suspicious website on their mobile device, and hackers can gain access to company data that way. PhishMe Free will hopefully help educate employees about phishing so that they’re ready for anything, whether on the computer or a mobile device.