Phishing attacks manipulate users into clicking malicious links, leading to malware infections or data theft. Phishing protection software safeguards users by preventing access to malicious websites, even if they inadvertently click on a phishing link.
Anti-phishing measures are essential for safeguarding individuals and organizations from the threat of phishing attacks. By identifying and blocking phishing websites, emails, and other malicious content, anti-phishing solutions help protect users from falling victim to these deceptive scams.
To combat phishing, organizations can deploy anti-phishing software to protect employees. IT admins can restrict web access to trusted websites or deploy technology to detect and block malicious websites. As browsers are a primary gateway for accessing work resources, phishing protection is crucial for IT admins to prioritize.
Since phishing attacks often redirect users to malicious websites, browsers play a crucial role in these attacks. To counter this threat, many browser vendors offer built-in anti-phishing features that users can easily enable to enhance their online security:
Google Chrome's Safe Browsing prevents users from landing on malicious websites. Google's technology examines billions of URLs daily, detecting thousands of new unsafe sites. These sites include malware-infected websites and websites that trick users into disclosing sensitive information.
The configuration once enabled, helps protect devices by showing warnings to users when they attempt to navigate to dangerous sites or download dangerous software designed to take over users' computers. Safe Browsing protects users from web-based threats like malware, unwanted software, and social engineering.
Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, much similar to safe browsing, warns users when they attempt to visit phishing sites or websites infected by malware. If this configuration is enabled on users' browsers, it analyses the webpages that users visit and throws a warning to the user if the page is found to be suspicious. SmartScreen also checks the websites visited by users against a dynamic list of reported phishing sites and malicious software sites. If a match is found, access to the website will be blocked.
SmartScreen also checks files downloaded by the user from the web against a list of reported malicious software sites and programs known to be unsafe. If it finds a match, SmartScreen warns the user that the download has been blocked for their safety.
Firefox's Phishing and Malware Protection warns users when they visit a webpage reported as a deceptive site and as a source of unwanted software (malware), designed to harm users computer. Phishing and Malware Protection works by checking the sites that users visit against lists of reported phishing, unwanted software and malware sites. These lists are automatically downloaded and updated every 30 minutes or so when the Phishing and Malware Protection feature is enabled. When users download application files, Firefox checks the website hosting them against a list of websites known to contain malware. If the site is found on that list, Firefox blocks the file immediately. It also uses Google's Safe Browsing to verify if the downloaded software is safe before allowing access.
The phishing filter in Endpoint Central can be enabled through the Threat Prevention configuration under Policies tab.
