A research survey says that a rapid rise in cyber crimes causing destruction to critical infrastructure in vulnerable targets will be observed in 2023. Phishing is one of them. Phishing commonly is in the form of suspicious emails. Hackers try to get personal information by posing as a corporate user and then they use that personal information for hacking purposes

With more data comes more phishing. Research says phishing attacks will rapidly increase which includes business communicative services and apps, like Microsoft Teams, Slack etc.

Here are some of the common signs of a phishing scam:

1. The message shall be unexpected and unsophisticated. If you suddenly receive a mail from a person you don’t or rarely deal with, consider this as an email suspect
2. Messages will have errors - Professional corporate messages are less likely to have typo errors. Be alert for the same
3. Hackers will request personal information. Always check and be alert while sending any kind of personal information

What to do if you are a victim of phishing scam

If you feel you have been a victim of a phishing attack:

• You shall contact your IT admin immediately if you are using a work computer
• You shall Immediately change all passwords which are associated with all of the accounts
• You shall report the fraudulent activity to your bank and credit card company asap

What to do when you find any website suspicious

• Microsoft Edge: select the More icon > Help and feedback > Report Unsafe site. Follow the instructions for the same
• Internet Explorer: select the gear icon, go to Safety, and then click on Report Unsafe Website. Follow the instructions that display to report the website.

Software solutions for organizations

• Microsoft Edge and Windows Defender Application Guard offer protection from the increased threat of targeted attacks using industry-leading Hyper-V virtualization technology. If a browsed website is untrusted then the Hyper-V container will isolate that device from the rest of your network which will prevent access to your enterprise network
• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will protect your emails, file and any online storage against malware. It protects Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business. It protects unsafe attachments and expands protection against malicious links, it gives security features to provide better zero-day protection.

You can report phishing spam in the following common ways :

For outlook.com: Click the Junk arrow and then select the Phishing button for reporting purposes

• For Microsoft 365: Use the Submissions portal in Microsoft 365 Defender for submission of junk or phishing mail
• Anti-Phishing Working Group: Mail on phishing-report@us-cert.gov. This group will help in fighting phishing scams and hackers.