Welcome to the final part of our comprehensive series on vishing. If you've been following along, you're already well-versed in unmasking vishing attacks, fortifying your front-line against them, shielding your brand, and bridging the gaps in defense with technology. Now, let's delve into the crucial strategies of monitoring, analyzing, and continuously improving your defenses against the two primary types of vishing attacks: those targeting your employees and those impersonating your brand.
In this final portion, we will look at:
Proactive Monitoring And Analysis To Protect Employees
Employees are your first line of defense against vishing, and so proactive monitoring and continual training is the baseline. In an ideal situation, though, you’re able to foster a security-focused culture, where employees are not just aware but are also actively participating in the defense against vishing attacks. Tools and techniques here include:
- Real-Time Detection and Analysis: Find and used advanced AI systems, such as YouMail, that not only learn patterns, but that can adapt defenses. Require installation of these defenses on company mobile devices. Continuously monitor patterns and analyze interactions to flag potential vishing attempts. Have your internal IT determine red flags that a successful vishing attempt on an employee might trigger, and setup detection and analysis systems.
- Empower Employees Through Ongoing Training: Regular, updated training sessions are crucial.Vishing tactics are evolving, now including sophisticated voice AI impersonations to more traditional deceptive calls. What’s next? Are you ready for it? With ongoing training, you will be.
- Create a Security-Focused Culture: Create a culture of open communication where employees can report vishing encounters without risk, and where learning is sought out and ongoing.
- Management Reporting: Consider some vital KPIs that enforce the policies above, such as “security training hours,” and include those in management reports. This helps keep a high-level focus on the solution … before a problem hits.
- Adopt a Multi-layered Defense: Echoing the layered defense strategy advocated by the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), consider a comprehensive approach to continuously improve your vishing defenses.
- Limiting Attacker Reach: Reduce publicly available information and filter calls.
- Empowering Users: As above, train users to identify and report attempts.
- Protect Accounts: Implement effective authentication and protective measures.
- Be Ready: Having a quick and effective incident response plan in place.
- Adapt and Evolve: Accept that no defense is foolproof. Use each encounter as a learning experience to refine your defenses.
Beyond helping your employees fight the vishing attempts against them, major brands will also need to help their clients and potential clients against brand impersonation scams.
Safeguarding Against Brand Impersonation Scams
Brand impersonation poses a significant threat to modern brands. However, there are clear strategies that not only speed a brand’s response, but that can proactively manage risks associated with brand impersonation:
- Brand Monitoring and Management: With over 38 million people affected by brand impersonation scams, continuous surveillance of your brand on various channels is essential. This includes immediately identifying unauthorized brand name mentions or implied references in voice calls, a critical aspect of services like the enterprise-focused YouMailPS Brand Defense.
- Customer Education and Trust Building: Inform customers about the possible vishing threats in your brand's name. For example, clarify that your brand will never ask for sensitive information in unsolicited calls or texts. This is not just damage control but a proactive strategy to build and maintain trust. These information campaigns can and should be ongoing.
- Incident Response and Mitigation Strategies: Develop documented, swift response strategies to handle brand impersonation incidents. This includes legal support, public relations management, and continuous analysis of the impersonation incidents to understand their impact and adapt strategies accordingly.
- Adopt a Multi-layered Defense: As above, layer your defenses in this arena as well.
Our journey through the Ultimate Vishing Guide shows the need to make security a high priority, and that creating the right culture of learning, adaptation, and continuous improvement are key to staying ahead in the battle against vishing. These strategies will not only help safeguard your business from vishing, but from the ongoing other cybersecurity challenges of today as well as tomorrow.
Vishing poses a significant threat to businesses and their customers. As the Ultimate Vishing Guide has shown, though, a layered defense supported with advanced tools such as YouMailPS can dramatically reduce the risks and costs of cyberattacks.
For a demonstration on how technology can fight vishing, but inside and outside of an organization, click here >
For more information on securing your business communication, contact YouMailPS — the industry leaders in detecting and protecting brands from fraudulent voice communications.