What Is Phishing – and How Does Your Bury St Edmunds Business Avoid It?
Phishing is the most common form of cyber attack facing businesses in Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk today. It’s also one of the most preventable, if your team knows what to look for.
Here’s what you need to know.
What phishing is
Phishing is when someone tries to trick you into giving up sensitive information, login details, financial data, personal records or into taking an action you wouldn’t take if you knew the truth. Clicking a link. Opening an attachment. Approving a payment.
The name comes from fishing: the attacker sends out bait and waits. It most commonly arrives by email, but also through text messages, voice calls, and social media.
Why it’s harder to spot than it used to be
Early phishing emails were obvious. Bad spelling, suspicious sender addresses, requests for your password from ‘Microsoft’.
Today’s attacks are much more convincing. Spear phishing targets a specific person or business, using information gathered from LinkedIn, your website, or social media to make the message look genuine. Business Email Compromise (BEC) goes further: an attacker compromises a real email account, often a supplier or a senior colleague, and uses it to request a payment or transfer. The email address is real. The sender is real. The request isn’t.
BEC fraud costs UK businesses significant amounts every year. It’s worth understanding.
What to look for
Even convincing phishing attempts often have tells. Check the actual sender address, not just the display name, the two don’t always match. Look for unusual urgency (‘act now or your account will close’). Be suspicious of unexpected attachments or links. Hover over links before you click to see where they actually go. Any request involving money, login credentials, or sensitive data should trigger a quick verification check.
What to do if something feels off
Don’t click anything. Don’t reply. Contact the apparent sender through a separate channel, pick up the phone if needed and check whether the message is genuine. Report it to your IT team or managed provider. If in doubt, delete it.
We’d rather deal with a false alarm than a real incident.
The technical side and the human side
Good email security, filtering, anti-spoofing (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), multi-factor authentication makes phishing significantly harder to execute. But technology alone isn’t enough. The last line of defence is always a person making a decision.
We offer phishing simulation exercises and staff awareness training for clients across Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk. It’s a practical, low-disruption way to build awareness and sharpen instincts across your team. Get in touch if you’d like to know more.
