Test Your Employees on Their Phishing Awareness!
In the last three weeks, we have been discussing phishing attacks. We have talked about what they are, the different forms they take, the telltale signs of an impending attack, and specific steps you can take to protect your business. Given everything you now know, you should be able to tell if your employees can protect your business.
Having the right information is very important indeed. But often, the level of what you know has nothing to do with how you will react when hypothetical situations become reality. Take your employees, for instance. Let’s say you have trained them repeatedly on how to handle phishing attacks. If you want to find out if they can apply what they have learned, the simplest thing to do would be to test them and have them answer the following questions.
A Brief Quiz on Phishing
The following are some statements that have to do with phishing. Consider each one carefully and identify whether the statement is TRUE or FALSE.
1. If you feel that you have been a victim of phishing, it is best to keep it to yourself.
2. Incredible prize offers and deals that appear to be too good to be true are likely to be scams.
3. Almost 88% of data breaches result from human error.
4. Cybercriminals collect about $1.5 billion through phishing annually.
5. Spam messages full of grammar and typo errors have consistently made good business sense for scammers.
6. Sending millions of emails is an expensive task.
7. You can protect yourself from phishing by validating emails before reacting to them.
8. In managing your company’s social media accounts, accepting friend requests from anyone will help you generate more business leads.
Quiz Answers
1. False
It’s quite surprising to know that a lot of employees feel embarrassed if they feel they have been phished. They probably think that it is their fault and that someone might blame them for exposing the rest of the company to online threats. It is necessary to report any phishing threat to your supervisor and the IT department so that they can take measures to remedy the situation and minimize further risk.
2. True
Greed is one of the most effective ways to lure people into making poor decisions. If you get an email or text message saying you won something, think twice before clicking the link to claim the prize.
3. True
It’s alarming to know that this number is increasing every year. The good news is that we can easily prevent these errors with sufficient employee training and education on phishing attacks and other online threats.
4. False
Unfortunately, the number is even bigger. Phishing scams collect approximately $1.5 trillion dollars every year!
5. True
Strangely, the poorly written emails that hackers send, which are riddled with all kinds of errors, have worked very well for them for many years.
6. False
Online criminals can afford to send out email blasts to millions of recipients because it is very cheap for them to do so, costing just a few dollars for the entire batch.
7. True
Before opening each email, you need to check the email address of the sender. If it’s someone you don’t know or if the domain looks suspicious, it’s best to just ignore the email.
8. False
It’s tempting to accept friend requests from anyone because the more followers your company has, the better it is for marketing, right? Not necessarily, especially with the rampant online attacks that are going on these days. You should only accept requests from users validated by someone from within your company.
Evaluating the Results
After gathering your employees’ responses to the quiz, you will have a better picture of how they would react in the event of an attack. If they got a perfect score, then your business is in good hands! If the score is not so good, it simply means there is a need for more intensive training, and that is something we can help you with.
We conduct full-scale employee training to protect businesses like yours from phishing and other kinds of online threats. Start your new Employee Training today!
If you feel you need to boost your defenses, give us a call at 401-522-5200. We will schedule a free consultation right away to discuss what we can do for you and your team.
