. In this exercise, you will convert the essay you wrote in Project 3 to a PowerPoint presentation. Read this all through to the end once before you try it. 2. Find the image files you downloaded as

Phishing attacks security issue

Ganga Adhikari

Technology has developed drastically over the past few years, therefore, making lives easier and increasing access to information. Despite the advantages, hackers are taking advantage of the technology to access intellectual property and steal data from companies leading to damaged reputation, denial-of-access, fines, and lawsuits. (Gupta et al. 2016). Phishing attacks involve social engineering attacks where hackers pretend to be trustworthy information sources and send emails with malicious attachments, which, once downloaded or opened, lead to accessing the intellectual property of an organization. Therefore, for phishing attacks to occur, hackers have to create a message or email which seems credible, an example, one may receive an email from their bank prompting them to click a link and change their passwords. Once the links are clicked, the hackers can access all customer’s bank details or transfer finances without the user’s consent.

Once the attack occurs, the company’s finances and reputation are affected since data is stolen and exposed, leading to customers’ lost confidence in the company. Some customers may file lawsuits against the company for leaking their private information, while the government may fine the company for failing to maintain a strong security system. To prevent such attacks, employee education is paramount, such that everyone understands how such attacks occur and instant reports are created when phishing attacks are detected. Generally, the attackers normally target individuals with limited knowledge of effective internet use. Therefore, equipping employees with skills ensures they can differentiate between credible and malicious emails received.

The organization’s technical team should develop measures for detecting and eliminating malicious files. By installing antimalware programs in the company’s system, files and links are automatically scanned, the warnings are issued for potentially malicious files. The antimalware programs should automatically filter emails and text messages by automatically deleting malicious ones. Companies are forcing employees to use the spam filter option to ensure that suspicious emails are not accessed or opened. (Al-Hamar et al. 2019).

Patching software is an effective mechanism where technicians install the latest software in the company’s system since hackers normally take advantage of outdated programs. However, ensuring continuously updated systems ensures that an organization’s intellectual property is always protected. Finally, scanning and vulnerability testing is effective for organizations in preventing potential attacks. Through security scans, organizations can actively check for malicious files and links accessed and then eliminate them.

In conclusion, although phishing attacks have increased gradually in the past years, through proper security deployment and education programs, people can actively prevent them. For example, through user education, one understands how hackers take advantage of ignorance to send malicious links and files. While through the installation of appropriate security scanning software and spam filtering preventing the opening of malicious files.

References

Gupta, S., Singhal, A., & Kapoor, A. (2016, April). A literature survey on social engineering attacks: Phishing attack. In 2016 international conference on computing, communication, and automation (ICCCA) (pp. 537-540). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/7795276/7813678/07813778.pdf?casa_token=mY2jOHomUQIAAAAA:2wK5VZsFIhUerM3NLckVs4bw4Y_RIppqBpw_wBTVhPVnJwoVvMo6dg7GGn-htHfoKCwxDxIKRA

Al-Hamar, Y., Kolivand, H., & Al-Hamar, A. (2019, October). Phishing attacks in Qatar: A literature review of the problems and solutions. In 2019 12th International Conference on Developments in eSystems Engineering (DeSE) (pp. 837-842). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/9058621/9072947/09073226.pdf?casa_token=qH83s9gcPmkAAAAA:WHyrKQEZVSYriV53jhzygkrHKdzDEhszs7JPMs_IN-tau0ZUqyZSLgd0-C60ueXV80RPcSI59A

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