How to Protect Your Company Against Office 365 Attacks

Rui Serra By Rui Serra • February 22, 2019

Most companies around the globe are Office 365 users, but many don’t know about the cyber attacks that target this online Office app.

With that in mind, this blog post is here to tell how these attacks are getting smarter and sneakier and why your company needs to ramp up your email security to protect your employees and your information.

The Dangers of Office 365 Attacks

We all know about phishing attacks. They’ve been around for almost as long as emails have. They are usually harmless looking and more of an annoyance than an actual threat.

The fact that only one spam message out of 12.5 million gets a response shows how true that is. But then you realize that 14 billion spam emails are sent every single day, the number is no longer insignificant.

On top of that, many of these are phishing emails targeting businesses, and each successful phishing attack costs a mid-sized business $1.6 million.

They no longer sound so harmless.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. These attacks are continually evolving and getting smarter and sneakier. And that’s where Office 365 comes in, where we’ve seen some of the more significant new attacks.

One of these is the one named PhishPoint – a phishing attack that’s quite simple yet so effective. The hacker sets up an account on Office 365. Then they start sending emails that look exactly like the standard SharePoint collaboration invitations. The user then clicks the link inside and is taken to a standard-looking Office 365 login screen. However, the login screen is fake, and when you put your credentials in, you’ve effectively lost them to the hacker.

This attack manages to circumvent your email security because it uses a regular Office 365 link which most anti-malware software doesn’t see as a threat.

Furthermore, PhishPoint is not the only problem. Many other issues can plague any Office 365 user. From ransomware attacks to banking trojans, there are plenty of attacks that manage to defeat your standard email security measures.

Due to all of this, you need better email protection and better practices for Office 365 if you want to protect yourself adequately.

How to Protect Your Business from Office 365 Attacks

Every type of cyber protection starts with improved knowledge on the matter. You need to train your employees and partners how these attacks happen and that they need to take better care of their email security.

Most cyber threats that end up being successful are made so effective precisely because of human negligence.

Everyone in your company needs to learn to look better at every email they receive, especially before they click on a link within them.

Additionally, you need to employ some other tactics as well, like stronger password policies, multi-factor authentication, and more.

In the end, the best thing that you can do is get an advanced email security system that incorporates Office 365 protection as well.

With all of these methods in your overall cybersecurity policy, you can rest assured that your business is safe from the increasing threat the hackers pose.

See how you can better protect your Office 365 for Business in this AnubisNetworks new free White Paper. Get your free copy now!


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