A Chief Technology Officer who sent out fake phishing emails to his company’s employees was surprised to find that over half of the recipients opened them
Tom Cochran sent 450 emails to Atlantic Media workers, which saw results of around 240 opens and 120 click-throughs.
He said: “It really resonated with employees when they realized what happened. Telling someone that something bad can happen is not as good as demonstrating it.
“I wanted to demonstrate that it’s easy to be phished and easy to protect against it.”
Other employees were more alert to security risks, and Cochran said he received a number of messages and calls about the fake emails.
He said most cyber attacks are the result of such emails, and Atlantic Media has since demanded that users enter a code delivered in a text message when accessing their inboxes on new computers.
How can you protect your business from cyber attacks? Find out at The European Information Security Summit.