Phishing is one of the most common cyber threats facing businesses today. Instead of breaking into systems with advanced tools, attackers rely on deception. They trick employees into clicking on harmful links, opening fake attachments or giving away passwords and financial information. A single phishing email can lead to financial loss, data breaches and legal problems.
Learning about phishing in cyber security and educating teams about it is essential for business continuity and customer trust.
How phishing works
Phishing is successful because it uses human psychology more than technical skills. Attackers rely on trust, curiosity and fear to trick people. The process usually follows these steps:
- Researching the target: Attackers collect information about the business, such as names of staff, suppliers or internal processes. This makes their messages more believable.
- Creating a lure: A fake email, message or website is designed to look genuine. It may copy the company’s branding or the style of a trusted partner.
- Delivering the message: The phishing email or message is sent to employees. Often, attackers send to many people at once to increase their chances of success.
- Triggering action: The message encourages the employee to click a link, download a file or share information. Urgency, fear or authority is used to push the victim to act quickly.
- Capturing information or installing malware: Once the employee interacts, login credentials may be stolen or harmful software may be installed in the system.
- Exploiting the access: Attackers use the stolen data or system access to transfer money, steal sensitive business information or launch bigger attacks like ransomware.
Types of phishing attacks
Attackers use different methods depending on who they want to target and what they hope to achieve. Here are the most common types of phishing attacks in cyber security:
- Email phishing: Bulk emails sent to company staff, designed to collect login credentials.
- Spear phishing: Targeted attacks on specific employees, often managers or finance staff.
- Whaling: A kind of spear phishing aimed at senior executives or directors.
- Smishing: Phishing through SMS or WhatsApp messages sent to employees’ phones.
- Vishing: Voice phishing, where callers pretend to be business partners, auditors or officials.
- Clone phishing: An authentic company email is copied, but with a fake link or file added.
- Business Email Compromise (BEC): Attackers pretend to be a CEO, CFO or vendor and request urgent payments.
Real-world examples of phishing attacks
These cases show how even large and well-protected companies can be tricked, and why smaller businesses must take the threat seriously. Some notable examples include:
- Technology company and social media platform (2013–2015): Attackers impersonated a supplier and sent fake invoices. Both companies paid nearly $100 million before discovering the fraud. About half of the money was later recovered.
- Home-based care provider company (2020): A phishing attack on just two employee accounts exposed the personal and financial data of more than 100,000 patients.
- Hedge fund (2020): A fake meeting link delivered malware that generated fraudulent invoices. The hedge fund lost around $800,000 and later shut down.
How to recognise a phishing attempt?
Businesses can train employees to look out for these red flags:
- Suspicious sender address: Emails slightly different from the genuine domain.
- Unexpected requests: Especially for payments or data.
- Spelling or grammar errors: Many phishing emails are poorly written.
- Strange links or attachments: Hover over links to check where they really lead.
- Urgency or pressure: “Act now or your account will be blocked” messages.
- Requests bypassing normal process: Like asking to change payment details quickly.
How to prevent phishing attacks?
Here are strong cyber security practices to reduce risks:
- Awareness training: Regular workshops for staff to identify phishing attempts.
- Simulated phishing tests: Safe practice emails to test employee responses.
- Multi-factor authentication: Even if a password is stolen, access is blocked without the second layer.
- Email filtering tools: Automatically detect and block many phishing attempts.
- Strict payment policies: All fund transfers and vendor updates should follow multi-level approval.
- Regular software updates: Patching vulnerabilities prevents attackers from gaining control.
Every business needs to treat cyber security and phishing as a single challenge, because phishing often bypasses technical defences and targets employees directly.
What to do if you fall victim to phishing?
Even with strong security, no business is completely safe. If an employee somehow falls for a phishing attempt, here is what to do:
- Act quickly: Change all exposed passwords immediately.
- Inform IT/security teams: So they can investigate and block attackers.
- Alert banks and partners: Stop fraudulent transfers and secure accounts.
- Check systems for malware: Run scans to ensure no harmful software is present.
- Report to cyber authorities: Many phishing cases can be traced and stopped if reported.
- Review policies: Learn from the incident and strengthen weak points.
Role of cyber insurance
Cyber insurance is becoming an important tool for businesses. In case of a phishing incident, insurance can cover:
- Losses from fraudulent fund transfers.
- Costs of restoring data and systems.
- Legal fees if client or employee data is exposed.
- PR and reputation management costs after a cyber incident
Conclusion
Phishing is one of the biggest online risks for businesses because it tricks people, not just systems. Real-life cases show that a single wrong click can result in significant financial loss, harm a company's reputation and even lead to its closure. For businesses, with more digital payments and remote work, the danger is even higher. The best protection against cyber phishing is simple: train employees, carefully review requests and use security tools like two-factor authentication. Similarly, cyber insurance can help cover financial losses.
FAQs
1. Is phishing only a problem for big companies?
Small and medium businesses are often more vulnerable because they may not have strong security controls.
2. Can training really stop phishing?
Most phishing attacks succeed due to human error. Regular training reduces mistakes.
3. Is cyber insurance necessary for all businesses?
It depends on the risk level, but insurance is recommended for any organisation handling sensitive data or financial transactions.
4. Can phishing lead to ransomware?
Many ransomware attacks usually start with a phishing email that carries a malicious file.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only. It is advised to verify the currency and relevance of the data and information before taking any major steps. Please read the sales brochure / policy wordings carefully for detailed information about on risk factors, terms, conditions and exclusions. ICICI Lombard is not liable for any inaccuracies or consequences resulting from the use of this outdated information.