Five Steps to Identify Phishing Messages

Five Steps to Identify Phishing Messages

Spear phishing, a type of email spoof, targets individuals or departments within organizations and attempts to elicit a desired action that could install malware, compromise login names and passwords and steal data. Use Paul Mah’s simple checklist to spot potential phishing messages. Feel free to share this PDF with your coworkers or employees.

From the network breach at RSA to theft of intellectual property in Operation Aurora, it is no secret that some of the most visible hacking involves the use of spear phishing. A targeted form of phishing that is custom-made for a specific organization, a spear phishing email message seeks to elicit a desired action that could result in a Trojan being loaded, or the unintended leaking of confidential or privileged data.

As Paul Mah has written in the past, defending against spear phishing is a challenging task that mandates some amount of user training. To assist organizations on this front, Paul has come up with a simple checklist to help identify a potential phishing message.

Mah’s PDF presentation is designed for sharing with your coworkers, with the goal of promoting and bolstering best practices, supporting user training and reinforcing security policies.

For a Web-based version of this presentation, be sure to visit IT Business Edge’s Slideshows section, where top-level IT decision makers can keep track of technical advances and new solutions, and pursue IT strategies that are right for their organizations.

Included in this ZIP file are:

• Intro Page.pdf
• Terms and Conditions.pdf
• Identify a Phishing Message in Five Steps.pdf