{"id":20878,"date":"2026-10-26T03:44:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/five-signs-of-phishing-that-protect-your-business\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T03:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T01:44:21","slug":"five-signs-of-phishing-that-protect-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/five-signs-of-phishing-that-protect-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Signs of Phishing That Protect Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

An invoice that needs to be paid today, a Microsoft 365 notification about a full mailbox or a message from a well-known supplier: phishing looks less and less like a sloppy scam. That is precisely why employees must recognize the five signs of phishing<\/strong> before one wrong click leads to a compromised account, data breach or business process that has come to a standstill.<\/p>\n

For SME organizations, phishing is not just an IT issue. An attacker who gains access to a mailbox can change payment details, approach customers on behalf of your company or read confidential documents. Technical security must therefore be in order, but employees remain an important line of defence. Not by making everyone suspicious, but by making clear checks a regular habit.<\/p>\n

Recognizing the five signs of phishing<\/h2>\n

Phishing emails often work with a combination of credibility, time pressure, and a request to do something. One signal is not always decisive. For example, a real supplier may also ask for a quick response. But when multiple signals come together, stopping and checking is the safest choice.<\/p>\n

1. The sender seems to be known, but the address is just not right<\/h3>\n

The visible sender name says little. A message may look like it’s from Microsoft, a bank, a colleague, or a regular vendor, but the actual email address is different. Think of an extra letter, an exchanged character or a domain name that closely resembles the real company name.<\/p>\n

Therefore, always check the full email address, not just the name on the screen. This is also wise for internal messages. Criminals can use external addresses with the name of a director or financial manager. When in doubt, don’t respond to the email and use a known phone number or contact to verify the question.<\/p>\n

Also pay attention to addresses that seem logical at first glance, but do not fit the organization. For example, a message from an accounting package from a free e-mail service is a reason to be extra alert. The sender is not an independent proof of authenticity, but it is often the first indication that something is not right.<\/p>\n

2. Pressure is put on with urgency, threats or secrecy<\/h3>\n

Phishing tries to take away time. According to the message, you must log in immediately, make a payment, open a document or change a password. Sometimes there is a threat of blocking an account, a fine or the loss of an order. Another well-known variant is an urgent request from the director that must remain “confidential”.<\/p>\n

That pressure is deliberate. Those who are in a hurry check less well. A legitimate organization can communicate a deadline, but usually also offers space to contact through the normal channel. A sudden request to transfer an amount or change bank details always deserves a second check, no matter how credible the message may seem.<\/p>\n

Make this a working arrangement, especially for finance, administration, and procurement: changes to payment information and unusual payments are never processed on the basis of email alone. A telephone check via a previously known number is easy, but prevents a costly fraud case.<\/p>\n

3. The link doesn’t lead to where you expect<\/h3>\n

A phishing link can be neatly incorporated behind a button such as ‘View document’, ‘Log in’ or ‘Confirm now’. The text of the button does not say where it really leads. Hover over a link without clicking and check the address that appears. This is more difficult on mobile, so extra restraint is wise.<\/p>\n

Look out for strange domain names, spelling mistakes, unexpected additions, or a long string of characters before or after a known company name. A page can be visually almost identical to that of Microsoft 365, a bank or a supplier. The address in the browser is often the most obvious difference.<\/p>\n

The safest way to do this is usually not to click from the email. Open the well-known website, your bookmark or the official app yourself and log in there. Are you expecting a document in SharePoint or OneDrive? Then go directly to the familiar environment and see if the file is actually ready there.<\/p>\n

4. The request does not fit your normal working process<\/h3>\n

Phishing becomes more convincing when attackers know who is working with whom. Yet the content often deviates from the normal process. A supplier suddenly asks for data that is already known. A colleague unexpectedly shares a file outside of the usual collaboration environment. Or a director asks an employee who does not normally make payments to buy gift cards.<\/p>\n

So don’t just look at language and spelling mistakes. These have become less reliable as a landmark due to better translation tools and targeted attacks. The better question is: does this request fit the sender’s role, my own responsibilities and our usual agreements?<\/p>\n

This requires clear internal processes. If employees know which system invoices are used to receive, who is allowed to approve changes and how an urgent payment is checked, they can recognize deviations more quickly. Safe behaviour then becomes not a matter of technical knowledge, but of consistently working according to a familiar working method.<\/p>\n

5. Login credentials, verification codes, or sensitive data are requested<\/h3>\n

A serious security signal is a request to share your password, multi-factor code, or recovery code. Also, a request to scan a QR code can be intended to give an attacker access to your account. Organizations may ask you to sign in again, but never ask for your password or a one-time verification code by email, chat, or phone.<\/p>\n

In addition, be cautious of requests to send personal data, financial information, copies of identity documents or customer files. Attackers sometimes use such data not immediately for fraud, but to carry out a more credible attack later.<\/p>\n

Multi-factor authentication<\/a> limits the damage if a password is leaked, but it doesn’t provide a complete guarantee. If someone approves an unexpected login notification, an attacker can still get in. The rule is simple: you don’t approve a notification that you didn’t initiate yourself.<\/p>\n

What do you do if someone has clicked?<\/h2>\n

A quick, open report makes a big difference. Employees should not be afraid to report a mistake. Shame or doubt ensures that attackers keep access for longer. If someone has only opened a suspicious e-mail, then often nothing has happened yet. If a link has been clicked, details have been entered or a file has been opened, immediate action is required.<\/p>\n

Do not let the employee adjust the internet connection himself if this hinders the accessibility of IT management, but do contact the internal IT manager or external IT partner immediately. Write down what happened: which email, which link, what time and what data may have been entered. Do not delete the message until it can be investigated.<\/p>\n

Depending on the situation, it may be necessary to terminate sessions, change passwords, check mailbox rules, scan devices, and investigate suspicious logins. In the event of a possible data breach, agreements on privacy, customers and any reporting obligations also play a role. The sooner this is addressed, the better the chance of limiting damage.<\/p>\n

Make phishing resilience part of your daily operations<\/h2>\n

An annual awareness email is rarely enough. Employees remember security rules better when they are in line with recognizable situations: an invoice from finance, a partial request in Microsoft 365, an application attachment from HR or a change in bank details from purchasing. Short, recurring instructions often work better in practice than one extensive training.<\/p>\n

Combine behavior with technique. Email filtering, domain security, multi-factor authentication, secure device management, and proper backups<\/a> reduce risk, but no single measure captures everything. The goal is layered security: a suspicious message is ideally blocked, a wrong click does not immediately lead to access, and an incident is quickly detected and remediated.<\/p>\n

The design of accounts also deserves attention. Give employees access only to systems and data that they need for their work. Use separate administrator accounts for administrative work and regularly monitor who has access to shared mailboxes, financial systems, and cloud storage. This limits the impact when an account is misused.<\/p>\n

For organizations without their own security specialist, it is valuable to periodically test these measures<\/a> together with an IT partner. Nexer helps SMEs not only with technical security, but also with workable agreements that fit the way employees work on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

It is not possible to completely rule out a phishing message. However, you can ensure that an unexpected email does not grow into a company incident. Therefore, give employees room to doubt, make checking accessible and treat every report as an opportunity to make the organization stronger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learn to recognize five signs of phishing and protect your employees, data and business continuity with clear agreements and daily practical checks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexer.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}