Did you know you can use spam to your advantage? Many companies have robust spam filters, security training, and fake spam emails to sniff out risk, but there is a much more effective way to train staff and increase your IT security. Let’s explore what’s known as “defanging” and repurposing spam.

It’s Monday and a typical spam email pretending to be a password reset or a track shipping notification from a notable and recognizable company. For the sake of this article, let’s ignore the fact that you should NOT be using your work email for personal use, that’s a whole other topic. You open the email, you notice the sender is mistyped, the color of the logo isn’t just right, you click your “Phishing” button on Outlook or forward to your IT support staff. Great job! Your IT department credit score just went up, maybe the boss will notice your keen eye in spotting spam.

What many don’t realize, is the IT team is crafting these emails with every intention of sabotaging your annual review with HR. Devious, evil, malicious, but necessary and probably the most fun job to have in IT support. Nevertheless, this is not the most efficient and effective way to keep your staff trained. Instead of having fun tricking 5% of the staff to buy a gift card and send you the info, you can utilize your email security policies to quarantine suspicious emails, “defang” the links of the email, then release them to the staff all in real time. What if they click the link? No big deal, it brings them to page to show them the error of their ways.

According to an article posted on Forbes.com:

Think about that for a second, 83% of organizations fell victim, not received. That’s staggering. Your organization’s data, authentication, and security has a 83% chance of being compromised every single year. Let’s be honest, 100% of companies will always be targeted for spam and phishing attempts. There isn’t a single person with an email on the plant that hasn’t received something with ill intent. But that’s why this is such a critical piece of security to have in place. Your IT department, as much as they claim of “on top of it boss!” is not enough, because not everyone has a criminal mind. Day by day hackers become more sophisticated, more advanced, and more astute in hooking a new victim.

Are you the business owner or financial decision maker? Sounds expensive? No, it’s extremely inexpensive, especially given the risk involved. For a few dollars a month per employee you can implement such features and keep your staff more informed, trained, and aware of these risks. Plus, you’ll be astonished by how many times staff members fall victim. That’s not to say anyone’s perfect, there was a time everyone thought they were going to be rich if they sent a prince money on PayPal. But this isn’t 2002, and these emails have become so convincing, they can fool the sharpest of spam spotters.

If you’re looking to implement better spam and phishing security into your organization, contact your local experts at ALTAMIT today. Visit ALTAMIT.net to chat live with an online specialist. Or call (888) 377-ALTA, that’s (888) 377-2582 to speak with a specialist now.