quit babying - proposal to combat malicious emails
isn’t it ironic that legit emails from coworkers or even the upper echelons of the company – contain links and attachments – that you are SUPPOSED to click on – and they arrive so often that those actions become habitual – in other words – the company is TRAINING you to do the bad thing – they do it so well that it becomes a reflex – and with hackers becoming more sophisticated about creating convincing emails – it’s hard not to click instead of investigate first
here’s a solution that i’ve never heard mentioned – the company should prohibit links or attachments in company emails – instead links and files should be put in a secure folder on the company network – and emails should have instructions to find the files or links in that folder
Examples:
“Look for filename Portfoilio1234.doc in the company folder.“
“Click on link 5678 in the links list in the company folder.“
hopefully – employees will have manually selected the company’s URL and logged into the company network – so that they and the company can be assured they are accessing the intended files and links
think of it – no more links in company emails – no more attachments in company emails – employees will then be trained to avoid links and attachments in emails – even in their personal email – and reduce the chances of activating malware overall
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online services – such as banks – medical services – retailers – etc – should NOT BABY customers – rather then inserting links in emails to nudge the customer to the target page – such services should instruct the customers to log in the old fashioned way – manually go to the URL (either by typing or selecting a bookmark they created) – and once there – manually login – (using a reliable password manager would substitute fine for this process)
those emails should include a text code for the customer to copy to their clipboard – which can be pasted into an input field on the company landing page – which should send the customer to the webpage with the information or documents intended for the customer