That’s it. One click on a dangerous link and without realising it, Dave is one step closer to giving hackers access to his company’s IT system, bank details or other personal information. Oops!

But it’s not really Dave’s fault. This is called phishing and it’s really, really hard to spot the difference between a phishing email and a totally authentic one. That's often why it's the smartest, most conscientious people in a business who are targeted and fall prey to hackers. This is because they care enough to act on emails and then click bad links without realising it.

But what is phishing?

You've probably heard of phishing attacks or phishing emails but do you know what phishing actually means?

At its simplest, it is where a hacker tries to gain access to your computer systems, bank details or other sensitive information by sending you an email pretending to be from someone else. For example, it could be in the guise of a supplier sending an invoice or an email from another colleague or customer asking for payment or personal details. From a personal perspective, it could mimic your bank, a shopping outlet or a friend of a friend.

You then click on the link, or open the attachment, or reply to the email, genuinely not meaning to do any harm, but within an instant the phisher has you ‘on the hook’ and from there they will attempt to extract money or information depending on their motives.

Nearly 90% of cyber breaches happen because of human error.

It can happen to anyone - well meaning, hard-working people who make a silly mistake when they are not fully concentrating on what they’re doing. This is why the vast majority of phishing attacks occur in the afternoon, when eyes are off the ball. At work, this poses a huge risk to the business as well as you personally.

Here at Net Technical Solutions we take IT Security very seriously and we see these types of attacks all the time. It's frightening how effective hackers are and just how sophisticated their phishing methods can be in order to gain access to a money or data.

Please don't think that you or any of your staff or colleagues are too smart to fall for such a thing. In our experience, the smartest most reliable people are often just as likely to fall prey to such attacks.

In order to help protect you and your place of work from becoming a victim of a phishing cyber-attack, we have written a brand new free guide which tells you what to look out for and what you need to know….and yes, you can hover over the link and you’ll see it goes to our secure website.

Net Technical can provide your company with Phishing Awareness Training to help make you aware of where your vulnerabilities lie. In our opinion, phishing awareness is just as important and effective as having antivirus, spam filtering or a firewall.

For further information, or to request a FREE TRIAL of our phishing service, please contact your Net Technical Account Manager on 01252 235 235 who will be happy to advise you.

Further articles from our Soundbytes Autumn Newsletter include:

• Flaw in 800,000 security cameras could see hackers view or even alter footage.
• Microsoft ignites interest with a raft of new announcements.
• Fashion retailer loses 6.4m passwords in server attack.
• Microsoft Outlook tips and tricks for better email management.

Click here for more information on our IT Support and IT Services in Surrey and Hampshire.