Phishing attacks on small to mid-sized businesses are increasing in frequency and sophistication. Luckily for Office 365 users, some serious updates have been made in the defense against email phishing. In April 2018, Microsoft upgraded Office 365’s Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) features to better detect spoofed emails, compromised accounts, unsafe links, and harmful attachments, and thereby prevent a wide variety of phishing scams. Here’s how Office 365 is helping small and mid-sized businesses fight back against sophisticated phishing scams:
- Impersonation Attacks – ATP has been upgraded to check email for potential phishing indicators in the sender’s address, name, and links to determine whether the user is being impersonated. To help protect against CEO email frauds, a company can even identify high-ranking team members who might be targeted for impersonation. Office 365 also utilizes machine learning to analyze users’ email patterns and flag suspicious contacts with no prior correspondence within your organization.
- Reducing Spoofs – Through the use of anti-spoofing technology, Office 365 blocks senders who have disguised their real email address. This feature allows you to enable safety tips that flag email domains containing unusual characters. For example, if your real domain is roebucktech.com, a spoofed domain could appear as róebucktech.com.
- Safe Links – Launched by Office 365 in 2018, Safe Links scans emails for fraudulent links and redirects users to a safe page rather than to harmful content. Email attachments are also scanned to provide even wider protection for your enterprise.
Thanks to these improvements, Microsoft has been able to stop more than 5 billion phishing attempts while protecting users against more than 7 billion malicious links. Due to their continual investment in security measures, Office 365 proves to be the most secure email option for businesses everywhere. In the period between May 1st and September 16th of 2018, Office 365 was rated to have the lowest phish rate among all other commonly used email services.
While Office 365 has strengthened its defenses against phishing attacks, no system is completely secure. Employees should be trained to recognize a phishing email when they see one. Hackers are constantly changing tactics to evade Office 365’s detection systems, so it’s important to stay alert. Phishing attacks can still slip through, so it’s important to take a proactive approach to your company’s cybersecurity strategy. Partnering with a managed IT services provider ensures your network is monitored from these and other types of cyberattacks.
Looking to implement Office 365 at your business? The experts at Roebuck Technologies can help make the migration seamless and secure. Contact us now to get started.
