Phishing Campaigns Targeting Small Businesses — test

Phishing is still the #1 way attackers break into small and mid-sized businesses. The scary part? Many of these attacks don’t rely on advanced hacking at all they simply trick an employee into clicking the wrong Link link or entering a password into a fake login page. — here’s a short, practical checklist you can use right now to protect your team

Phishing Campaigns Targeting Small Businesses — How to Spot & Stop Them

Phishing remains the most common first step attackers use to gain access to business systems. The good news: many phishing attacks are preventable with a few practical steps you can implement today.

What this looks like

Phishing attempts commonly arrive as email, SMS, or chat messages. Typical traits include:

• Urgent requests to “verify” or “update” account details.
• Messages that look like they come from a vendor or colleague but contain unusual links.
• Unexpected attachments (often ZIP or Office files requesting macros).
• Requests to bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA) or to provide one-time codes.

Quick detection checklist (use immediately)

1. Check the sender carefully. Hover over the email address — does it match the company domain, or is it slightly different?
2. Don’t click links. Hover to see the real destination. If a link looks odd, don’t click it.
3. Treat urgency as suspicious. Attackers rely on panic. Pause and verify by calling the sender on a known number.
4. Watch for credential prompts. Legit services will rarely ask for passwords over email or chat.
5. Examine attachments safely. If an attachment is unexpected, confirm with the sender before opening and scan it with endpoint protection.

Immediate remediations (what to do if you suspect a phishing attempt)

• Contain: Don’t forward the message to colleagues. Quarantine and delete the email.
• Change passwords: If credentials were submitted, change passwords on the affected account and any accounts that reuse the same password.
• Enable/review MFA: Turn on multi-factor authentication for all business accounts and check authentication logs for suspicious activity.
• Scan endpoints: Run a full AV/EDR scan on the recipient’s device.
• Report: Submit the phishing message to your mail provider (Gmail/Office 365) and to your IT team so they can add protections like blocking sender domains or IPs.

Longer-term protections (recommended next steps)

• User training: Run short monthly phishing awareness drills and quick training sessions.
• Email filtering & DMARC: Configure strong SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies and use advanced email filtering to block impersonation.
• EDR + Managed Detection: Deploy Endpoint Detection & Response and use managed monitoring (like our AVIAN monitoring service) to spot lateral movement quickly.
• Regular access reviews: Periodically review who has admin access and enforce least-privilege.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) — things to watch for

• MFA prompts the user did not initiate.

• Unexpected password reset notifications.

• New devices logging in from unusual locations.

• Large data downloads from accounts that don’t normally transfer data.