HOOK, LINE AND PHISHER...
My teenage son works in a retail store on weekends, one of his pet peeves is arranging the fishing lures. They come in dozens of fiddly little packets, and each one needs to be individually priced.
During one of his more animated rants, he was moaning about the sheer number of different types, brightly coloured baits, shiny lures, odd-shaped hooks and I explained, as any parent would: ‘Well, different fish go for different bait’.
Then it hit me. We’re not so different from fish!
You have most likely heard the statistic before, 9 out of 10 successful cyber attacks are believed to have been started from a phishing email. It’s no coincidence. Just like fish, people fall for bait, especially when it looks just right.
In fact, companies in the UK alone spend an estimated 50 million a year on phishing awareness training. Despite that, employees still get caught out by that one realistic looking email, the digital equivalent of a shiny lure in the water
WHY TRADITIONAL ANTI-SPAM TOOLS FALL SHORT
Traditional anti-spam software typically relies on a points-based system to determine whether an email is spam. It checks for known variables like dodgy domain names, suspect phrasing, or incorrect headers and assigns each one a value. If the email exceeds a set threshold, it’s quarantined.
Here’s the problem: attackers know this. Targeted phishing campaigns are carefully crafted to avoid these markers. They register legitimate-looking domains, set up correct security settings, and write emails that sound convincing and clean.
That means these emails often slip through the net.
THE CASE FOR SMARTER ANTI-SPAM ENGINES
No spam filter is perfect, but if you’re serious about reducing risk, you need a more modern, intelligent anti-spam engine. The fewer convincing-looking lures in your users’ inboxes, the less likely they are to bite.
So, what should you be looking for in a next-gen solution?
Self-learning detection (aka machine learning or AI)
Behavioural analysis of senders and recipients
Advanced link inspection
Sandboxing to observe unknown attachments in a safe environment
Real-time threat intelligence shared across the cloud
User feedback integration to shut down emerging campaigns quickly
The ability to learn from thousands of legitimate and malicious emails, combined with rapid response to user-reported threats can help neutralise phishing campaigns in minutes, not days.
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