Comprehensive Phishing Protection Guide for Businesses in 2025

Chances are you’re familiar with phishing, the prominent email attack that deceives recipients in order to gain access to confidential information, often resulting in significant website downtime, data loss, revenue decreases, and severe reputational harm.

That being said, by understanding various types of phishing attacks and how they work, how to recognize a phishing email, and tips and best practices for email security, you can prevent phishing email attacks. Ensuring your business has a secure email is critical in preventing any threat from harming your system, especially email threats, since they account for almost 34% of all cybercrime occurrences, with over 298,000 phishing complaints recorded. Here’s what you need to know about phishing and phishing protection to secure your users and critical business assets against this dangerous scam.

What Is Email Phishing & How Does This Scam Work?

Phishing is a digital attack frequently carried out via email. Threat actors use spoofed email addresses or compromised accounts from previous attacks to send malicious emails. Typically, a phishing attack tricks users into falling for a scam. Phishing campaigns typically aim to get people to reveal financial information, credentials, or other sensitive data. While sending out spam emails in bulk is commonly used for large-scale, generic phishing campaigns, cybercriminals have shifted to favor targeted, well-researched attacks. Modern phishing campaigns often employ social engineering tools and artificial intelligence-generated phishing emails, making distinguishing bogus from real correspondence more difficult than ever. These advanced methods manipulate a person’s psychology and encourage recipients to act rapidly without stopping to think.

Phishing is a prevalent method of email threats because it is cheap, easy, and effective. Attackers can use phishing scams for free, but their targets pay hefty costs. Victims frequently face data loss, identity theft, malware infections, significant recovery costs, and damaged company reputations.

What Are Some Common Types of Phishing Attacks?

Digital threats are rapidly evolving - and phishing is no exception. Since it was discovered in 1987, attackers have developed various highly specialized tactics in order to deceive victims and gain access to sensitive data that can be monetized for personal gain. Some of the most pervasive modern types of phishing attacks include:

• Standard Email Phishing is arguably the most notorious form of phishing. It involves an attempt to steal sensitive information via an email that appears to be from a legitimate, trusted source. Standard email phishing is not a targeted attack and is often conducted en masse.
• Spear Phishing: Spear phishing is a highly targeted version of phishing that involves sending fraudulent emails that appear to be from a known or trusted sender. Generally more successful than conventional phishing, spear phishing emails have become more common, accounting for 95% of all enterprise network attacks, reflecting a 25% rise in targeted incidents. As opposed to sending hundreds of thousands of relatively generic emails at a time, spear phishing campaigns involve researching victims and using advanced intelligence strategies to compose a thousand convincing messages.
• Malware Phishing: This attack utilizes the same techniques as typical email phishing; however, malware phishing aims to trick targets into clicking a link or downloading an attachment so malware can be installed on their devices. With criminals leveraging AI-powered email generation and publicly available personal data, malware phishing is currently the most pervasive type of phishing attack.
• Business Email Compromise: A BEC scam involves a company’s compromised email address, which an attacker uses to send fraudulent emails. Cybercriminals assume the account owner's identity to steal money from the company, its employees, its partners, or its customers.
• Clone Phishing: Clone phishing involves a malicious actor compromising someone’s email account, changing an existing email by swapping a legitimate link or attachment with a malicious one, and then sending the spoofed email to the person’s contacts in order to spread the infection.
• Man-in-the-Middle Attack: A Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack involves an eavesdropper monitoring correspondence between two unsuspecting parties. These types of phishing attacks are often carried out by creating phony public Wi-Fi networks. Once joined, the “man in the middle” can phish for valuable data or infect devices with malware.
• AI-Generated Content: Phishers increasingly use AI to mimic human writing styles, making emails appear more legitimate. Always double-check unexpected or unsolicited messages for authenticity.

Tips & Best Practices for Recognizing and Avoiding Phishing Emails

Email security awareness, training, and education are critical in protecting against phishing attacks. To effectively recognize and handle phishing emails, consider the following comprehensive guidelines and best practices:

• Check for Spelling and Grammatical Errors: Fraudulent emails often contain noticeable language mistakes. Poor language quality can indicate malicious intent.
• Examine Subject Lines and Signatures: Suspicious or unfamiliar subject lines and signatures that don’t match the official communications of trusted organizations can indicate phishing attempts.
• Verify the Sender’s Legitimacy: If an email seems unusual, contact the sender directly using a known and trusted communication method to confirm its authenticity. Invalid or slightly altered “From” email addresses (e.g., using variations like fedex-support.com instead of fedex.com) are common in phishing emails.
• Avoid Using the Reply Function for Suspicious Emails: Instead of replying, initiate a new email to the known contact to verify the message’s legitimacy.
• Scan Attachments and Links: Use malware and URL scanners to check for viruses or dangerous code before opening attachments or clicking links. Malicious attachments, especially unsolicited ones requiring urgent action, are strong indicators of phishing.
• Think Before You Act: Take a moment to evaluate the email's content. Ask yourself:
  • Does this email correspond to your recent actions, such as a purchase?
  • Do the sender and recipient addresses align with the supposed source?
• Phishing relies on rushed decisions—pausing to assess the email critically can prevent falling victim.
• Be Wary of AI-Generated Content: Phishers increasingly use AI to mimic human writing styles, making emails appear more legitimate. Always double-check unexpected or unsolicited messages for authenticity.

Can You Spot the Phish?

The image below is one of various spear phishing emails identified and quarantined by Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security. It mimics a legitimate FedEx shipment confirmation email very closely. Can you spot the phish?

Some indications that this is a fraudulent email include the following: 

1. An invalid “From” email address
2. Invalid tracking information which differs in the subject and the body of the email
3. A malicious attachment in the bottom left corner - FedEx does not send tracking information in the form of an attachment.

Safeguard against Human Error with a Comprehensive, Adaptive Email Security Solution

Email security awareness education can help reduce the likelihood of a successful phishing attack; however, human behavior is ultimately unpredictable. Thus, to effectively ensure phishing protection, a safeguarded environment must be built around the user. This can be achieved through a comprehensive, intuitive email security software solution that identifies and blocks the most stealthy spear phishing emails and attempts in real-time.

Email security expert and Guardian Digital CEO Dave Wreski states, “Engaging in email security best practices is important, but this alone will not prevent a successful phishing attack. A fully integrated email security solution that delivers total end-to-end control is critical to safeguard business email accounts. An effective solution must provide real-time protection against phishing and other advanced email threats while continuously adapting to a changing business and security environment.” 

Secure Business Email Against Phishing with a Cloud-Based Protection System

Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security provides multi-layered real-time protection against the most targeted and sophisticated phishing scams, coupled with the expert system monitoring, maintenance, and support required to keep your users and critical assets safe. Key features and functionalities of EnGarde’s phishing protection include:

• Email spoofing and impersonation protection
• Ransomware and malware protection
• Zero-day attack protection
• Multi-layered design powered by open-source technology - the same technology that powers the Internet itself
• Dynamic link and file analysis
• Heuristics-based anti-spam and anti-virus protection
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC email checking
• End-to-end encryption
• Comprehensive management and supportive email security services

Keep Learning About Phishing Prevention

Phishing prevention can be difficult, but following the tips and advice outlined in this article can significantly minimize your risk of falling victim to digital scammers. Consider these additional steps to enhance your cybersecurity posture:

• Learn more about an effective email security software solution that understands the relationships you have with others while gaining a more profound knowledge of your conversations with them.
• Prepare your business for cyberattacks to make sure employees stay safe online.
• Improve your email security posture to protect against attacks and breaches by following best practices.
• Keeping the integrity of your email safe requires securing the cloud with spam filtering and enterprise-grade anti-spam services.
• Get the latest updates on how to stay safe online.

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