What is Phishing (and How Does it Affect Your Business)?

Phishing is more than just a digital annoyance—it’s a crafty cyberattack that continues to wreak havoc on businesses of all sizes. Cybercriminals use it to exploit unsuspecting employees, bypass security measures, and wreak financial, operational, and reputational destruction.

Scared? Don’t be. Knowledge is power, and understanding phishing is the first step toward safeguarding your business. At Huntress, we’ve seen how phishing attacks target businesses of all sizes, exploiting unsuspecting employees and bypassing traditional security measures. This guide will break down phishing, show you exactly how it impacts your business, and highlight actionable steps to shield your organization from it. Plus, we'll introduce the tools and strategies Huntress uses to keep phishing attacks (and the problems they create) at bay.

Phishing is a cybercrime where attackers pose as a trusted entity—like your bank, a major vendor, or even a colleague—to trick you into sharing sensitive information, clicking malicious links, or downloading harmful attachments.

How do they do it? These sneaky scammers play human nature like a fiddle. They count on curiosity, urgency, or fear to make you drop your guard. Whether it’s a fake login page or an invoice attachment loaded with malware, their goal is clear—steal your credentials, access your systems, or deploy ransomware.

Phishing doesn’t just limit itself to email either. Attackers are now sliding into DMs, text messages, and even hopping on phone calls to carry out their schemes.

What is a common indicator of a phishing attempt?

• An email or message that creates urgency (e.g., “Your account will be deactivated unless…”).
• Spelling errors or strange formatting.
• The sender’s email address looks suspicious or doesn’t align with the organization they claim to represent.
• Hyperlinked text leads to unfamiliar or spoofed websites.
• Unexpected attachments.

Pretty sneaky, huh? And the consequences of falling for these tactics can be far-reaching.

Phishing attacks aren’t just a nuisance—they’re a serious threat to your bottom line, reputation, and daily operations. Let's look at how they can throw a wrench into your business:

1. Data Breaches

Phishing often leads to unauthorized access to sensitive data—think customer information, trade secrets, or financial records. Breaches like these trigger not only massive fines from regulatory bodies but also the loss of customer trust, both of which can be hard to recover.

2. Financial Loss

Attackers go straight for your wallet by stealing funds or conducting fraudulent transactions with stolen credentials. Plus, the cost of investigating, mitigating, and recovering from an attack quickly adds up.

3. Operational Disruption

Phishing sometimes serves as an entry point for ransomware or other disruptions. Imagine your entire IT infrastructure going down during a critical business period. Every second offline? A loss.

4. Reputational Damage

A breach goes public, and suddenly your once-loyal customers are running for the hills, skeptical of your ability to protect them. A 2023 report by Vercarda stated that 66% of U.S. consumers “would not trust a company that falls victim to a data breach with their data” (ouch).

5. Employee Productivity Loss

Handling a phishing breach involves resetting passwords, taking systems offline, and extensive post-attack investigations. This not only costs you time but drags down employee productivity.

Need more proof? The FBI reported phishing-related financial losses totaling $1.7 billion in 2019 alone. Combined with reputational hits and operational downtime, it's clear that phishing is a battle no business wants to fight unprepared.

Phishing is constantly evolving, but most scams fall into these (very shady) categories:

1. Spoofing

Attackers impersonate a trusted source—like a bank, a vendor, or even your CEO—to make their emails or messages look legitimate. “Hi, this is your boss. Transfer $10,000 to this account ASAP.” Sound familiar?

2. Urgency Tactics

Cybercriminals deliberately create a sense of urgency to hurry people into making mistakes, like clicking on malicious links without a second thought.

3. Malicious Links & Attachments

Emails either contain links to fraudulent websites (that look eerily real), bad phone numbers to call,  attachments laced with malware, or other instructions—like scanning a QR code.  One wrong action ccould compromise your entire network.

The good news? These tactics can be defeated with the right strategy in place.

Protecting your business from phishing requires a multi-layered approach. Here’s a checklist to help IT professionals shield their organizations:

1. Educate Your Employees

Your employees are the first line of defense against phishing. Conduct regular security awareness training to help them recognize common tactics, such as fake sender details, deceptive links, and other red flags. Empowering your team with knowledge is one of the most effective ways to prevent attacks.

2. Prioritize Strong, Unique Passwords

Encourage the use of strong, unique passwords for every account. This minimizes the impact of a data breach or phishing incident by containing the damage to a single site. A password manager can simplify this process and further enhance security.

3. MFA for All the Things

Set up Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to make it significantly harder for attackers to access accounts, even if they manage to steal passwords. Learn more about MFA with our blog post, To MFA or Not to MFA: How Multi-Factor Authentication Saves the SMB. 

4. Advanced Security Tools

Use enterprise-grade solutions such as email filtering, endpoint detection, and response (EDR) tools to block phishing emails before they even reach the inbox, or minimize the fallout of a successful attack.

5. Build an Incident Response Plan

Have a robust plan in place for detecting and mitigating phishing attempts. This includes clear steps for isolating compromised systems and recovering affected data.

6. Conduct Regular Security Assessments

Phishing attacks evolve quickly. Be proactive by regularly evaluating your network's vulnerabilities and implementing updated security standards.

7. Partner with Experts like Huntress

Huntress Managed Security Awareness Training equips your team to recognize and report cyber threats effectively. Pair that with our Managed EDR and ITDR solutions, backed by 24/7 monitoring from human threat hunters and you have a powerful defense to keep your organization resilient against cyberattacks.

Businesses are only as strong as their defenses. Don’t leave yours vulnerable.

As a leading security awareness training provider, we know phishing requires a multi-layered defense strategy. While no tool can stop phishing entirely, our approach minimizes risk and mitigates damage when attacks occur. Here's how we can help:

• Proactive Threat Hunting: Our team actively looks for signs of compromise, ensuring that attackers who exploit human vulnerabilities are stopped before they can cause widespread damage.
• 24/7 SOC Monitoring:  If an attack succeeds, our Security Operations Center (SOC) immediately investigates, isolates compromised systems or identities, and kicks off remediations to prevent further harm.
• Endpoint Monitoring: Social engineering attacks often introduce malicious payloads—our Managed EDR solution ensures endpoints are continuously monitored and protected.
• Identity Monitoring: Attackers love going after identity-based accounts such as Microsoft M365. With Identity Detection and Response, you’ll have a team of experts watching over your accounts for suspicious activity.
• Security Awareness Training: Huntress offers an award-winning and engaging Security Awareness Product designed to help users be more resilient through educational training and phishing simulations.
• Log Retention: The Huntress Managed SIEM is built to give you easy collection and retention of crucial log data needed to help investigate intrusions and support compliance & insurance needs. 

With Huntress as your security partner, phishing threats don’t stand a chance.