Phishing Protection

Overview

About anti-phishing

What phishing attacks do and how anti-phishing protection stops them.

How phishing protection helps

Phishing attacks trick users into clicking malicious links, which can lead to malware infections or data theft. Phishing protection software guards against this by blocking access to malicious websites, even if a user clicks a phishing link by mistake.

Anti-phishing measures protect individuals and organizations by identifying and blocking phishing websites, emails, and other malicious content, so users don't fall victim to these scams.

Protection

Benefits of anti-phishing software

Browsers are a primary gateway for phishing attacks, so most major browser vendors build in their own anti-phishing protection.

Restricting and detecting malicious access

Organizations can deploy anti-phishing software to protect employees, either by restricting web access to trusted sites or by deploying technology that detects and blocks malicious websites. Because browsers are a primary gateway to work resources, phishing protection is a priority for IT admins — and because phishing attacks often redirect users to malicious sites, browsers play a central role in defending against them. Many browser vendors offer built-in anti-phishing features that users can enable to improve their online security.

Google Chrome's Safe Browsing

Safe Browsing stops users from landing on malicious websites. Google's technology examines billions of URLs every day and detects thousands of new unsafe sites, including malware-infected sites and sites designed to trick users into disclosing sensitive information.

Once enabled, Safe Browsing warns users when they try to visit dangerous sites or download dangerous software that could take over their computer, protecting against malware, unwanted software, and social engineering.

Microsoft's SmartScreen

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen works much like Safe Browsing: once enabled, it analyzes the webpages users visit and warns them if a page looks suspicious. It also checks visited sites against a dynamic list of reported phishing and malicious-software sites, and blocks access if it finds a match.

SmartScreen also checks files users download against a list of reported malicious software and known-unsafe programs. If it finds a match, it warns the user that the download has been blocked for their safety.

Mozilla Firefox's Phishing Protection

Firefox's Phishing and Malware Protection warns users when they visit a page reported as deceptive or as a source of unwanted software. It works by checking visited sites against lists of reported phishing, unwanted-software, and malware sites.

When users download application files, Firefox checks the hosting site against a list of sites known to contain malware and blocks the file immediately if it's found on that list. Firefox also uses Google's Safe Browsing to verify a downloaded file is safe before allowing access.

Setup

Implementing the phishing filter

Enable phishing protection through Browser Security Plus's policy configuration.

Enabling the phishing filter

Enable Browser Security Plus's phishing filter through the Threat Prevention configuration under the Policies tab.