How to Protect Against Phishing A UK Business Guide

To truly protect your business from phishing, you need to think beyond just a single piece of software. It’s a combination of smart technology, ongoing team training, and solid company policies that really makes a difference. This layered approach builds a strong defence, making sure that if one layer is bypassed, another is ready to catch the threat.

Understanding Modern Phishing Threats in the UK

Let's be clear: phishing isn't what it used to be. Gone are the days of obvious, typo-riddled emails that were easy to spot. Today's attacks are sophisticated, targeted, and dangerously convincing, putting UK businesses of all sizes at serious risk. Scammers now use advanced tactics, from impersonating the CEO to building pixel-perfect clones of websites you trust, all with the goal of stealing logins or deploying malware.

The fallout from a successful attack goes far beyond a temporary IT headache. For a small or medium-sized business, the consequences can be devastating. We've all heard the horror stories of attackers emptying bank accounts or conning staff into paying fake invoices, and these financial losses are very real. But the damage doesn't stop there.

The True Cost of a Breach

A data breach stemming from a phishing email can shatter the trust you’ve worked so hard to build with your customers. On top of that, you could be facing hefty fines under GDPR if any personal data is compromised. Then there’s the operational downtime—every hour spent cleaning up the mess is an hour of lost revenue and productivity.

Phishing isn't just an IT problem; it's a critical business risk. A single clicked link can jeopardise your finances, client relationships, and long-term viability. Protecting your organisation requires a proactive, not reactive, mindset.

So, how do you defend against it? The first step is realising this is a battle fought on multiple fronts. No single tool or policy will ever be enough. An effective defence strategy is built on three core pillars:

• Robust Technology: This is your automated frontline. Think advanced email filters that catch malicious messages before they even land in an inbox and security protocols that verify a sender is who they claim to be.
• Proactive Employee Training: Your team is your human firewall. Regular, engaging training gives them the skills to spot suspicious messages and helps them understand the vital role they play in keeping the company safe.
• Clear Company Policies: These are your established rules of engagement. They set out clear procedures for handling sensitive data, verifying payment requests, and reporting a potential threat immediately.

By weaving these three elements together, you build a resilient security culture where everyone is on the same page. To give you a clearer picture, this table maps common phishing attacks to their primary defence, setting the stage for the practical strategies we’ll cover next.

Key Phishing Threats and Primary Defences

This framework gives you a solid foundation. Now, let's dive into the specifics of how you can put these defences into practice.

Building Your Human Firewall with Staff Training

While all the technical defences are a brilliant shield, at the end of the day, your people are your last and most important line of defence. Cybercriminals know this all too well. It’s often easier for them to bypass your security software entirely and go straight for your team. This is why the best way to stop phishing in its tracks is to turn your staff from potential targets into a proactive security asset.

This isn’t about a boring, one-off annual meeting that everyone forgets by lunchtime. A proper "human firewall" is built on continuous, engaging security awareness training that weaves itself into your company culture. The aim is to nurture a healthy sense of scepticism and give your team the confidence to question anything that doesn't feel right.

Let's be clear: phishing is still the most common and damaging threat facing UK businesses. The latest Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 from the government shows that a staggering 85% of businesses and 86% of charities that reported a breach were hit by phishing attacks. But there's good news. Businesses that truly commit to regular training see a massive drop in risk—we're talking about reducing employee susceptibility by over 40% in just 90 days.

Designing Training That Actually Works

For any training to stick, it has to be relevant. Forget generic, textbook examples and focus on the real-world situations your team will actually face.

Here are a few scenarios to get you started:

• Urgent Financial Requests: Send a simulated email, seemingly from a director, asking for an urgent bank transfer or the purchase of gift cards. This classic scam plays on an employee’s natural desire to be helpful and act quickly.
• AI-Powered Impersonation: Show your team how AI voice cloning or hyper-personalised texts can perfectly mimic a trusted colleague’s communication style. It’s a real eye-opener into just how sophisticated modern attacks have become.
• Fake Login Pages: A common classic. Use simulations that send users to a replica of your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace login page. These are designed purely to steal credentials and can catch anyone off guard.

From my experience, the best training programmes mix education with hands-on testing. Running regular, unannounced phishing simulations is a fantastic way to check your team's awareness and reinforce good habits in a completely safe environment.

The goal of a phishing simulation is never to catch people out or embarrass them. It's about creating a powerful learning moment. When someone clicks a simulated phishing link, they should get instant, non-judgemental feedback that clearly explains the red flags they missed.

Foster a Blame-Free Reporting Culture

All the training in the world won't matter if your staff are too scared to speak up. It is absolutely vital to create a simple, clear, and blame-free way for them to report suspicious emails.

Your team needs to know they’ll be praised for being vigilant, not told off for a potential mistake.

Set up a dedicated email address where people can forward anything that seems a bit off. This gives your IT team or support provider a central point to analyse threats quickly. When someone spots and reports a clever phishing attempt, celebrate it! A quick thank you in a team meeting goes a long way. This positive reinforcement encourages everyone to stay alert and is a cornerstone of solid cybersecurity for small business.

Implementing Essential Technical Security Layers

While a well-trained team is your last line of defence against phishing, your technology stack should always be your first. Think of it as a digital gatekeeper, working tirelessly in the background to filter out threats before an employee ever gets the chance to click on a malicious link. Getting this right is a huge part of protecting your business effectively.

These automated systems aren't just a "nice-to-have" – they're absolutely essential. The sheer volume of attacks is far too great for human monitoring alone. Even tech giants like Google block over 100 million phishing emails every single day, and dangerous messages still slip through.

That fact alone shows why you need dedicated, business-grade tools that go far beyond default email settings. The scale of this problem is eye-watering, as these 2025 phishing statistics from zensec.co.uk make clear.

Your First Line of Defence: Advanced Email Filtering

The most foundational piece of your technical shield is an advanced email filter, often called a secure email gateway. This is basically your standard spam filter on steroids. It uses intelligent analysis to inspect incoming emails for red flags that your basic, out-of-the-box filters would almost certainly miss.

A good system will actively check for:

• Suspicious links and attachments: It scans and tests them in a safe, isolated environment (a "sandbox") before they can ever reach a user's inbox.
• Impersonation signals: It looks for the subtle signs of an attacker pretending to be your CEO, a colleague, or a trusted supplier.
• Known malicious senders: It constantly checks senders against global threat intelligence databases to block messages from known criminals.

Putting one of these in place is a massive leap forward for your security. Our guide on email security solutions offers more detail on choosing the right tools for your business.

A secure email gateway acts like a customs checkpoint for your company's inbox. It inspects every single piece of mail, quarantining anything that looks dangerous long before it has a chance to cause harm.

Verifying Sender Identity with Email Authentication

Another critical layer involves stopping a particularly sneaky type of attack called spoofing. This is where a scammer makes an email look like it came from a legitimate source – even your own company domain. Three key protocols work together to slam the door on this technique.

1. SPF (Sender Policy Framework): This is essentially a public list of all the servers that are officially allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. If an email comes from a server not on the list, it's flagged as suspicious.
2. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Think of this as a digital, tamper-proof seal. It adds a cryptographic signature to your emails, which receiving servers can check to confirm the message hasn't been altered in transit.
3. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): DMARC ties it all together. It’s a policy that tells other email servers what to do if a message claiming to be from you fails the SPF or DKIM checks. You can tell them to quarantine it or reject it outright.

Setting up these protocols makes it incredibly difficult for attackers to impersonate your domain, protecting both your staff and your brand's reputation from being used in an attack. It’s a technical step, for sure, but one that your IT provider can help you configure correctly.

Making Stolen Passwords Useless with MFA

So, what happens if a scammer succeeds and tricks one of your team into giving up their password? It's a scary thought, but there’s a rock-solid way to make that stolen credential completely useless. The whole point of most phishing scams is to harvest logins, but this one security measure can stop them cold.

I’m talking about Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Think of it like needing two keys to open a safe. A password is the first key, but the second factor—maybe a code from a mobile app or a physical security key—is the second. Even if a thief has the password, they're still locked out without that second key. Frankly, MFA is no longer a 'nice-to-have'; for any modern business, it's an absolute must.

The damage from stolen credentials is very real for UK businesses. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey consistently shows that compromised accounts are a major cause of data breaches. This just proves that a password alone isn't enough anymore. Implementing MFA makes a criminal's job incredibly difficult, which is why it’s now standard practice for so many UK organisations.

Where You Need to Enforce MFA Right Now

Ideally, you'll roll out MFA across every single company application, but some areas need your immediate attention. These are the crown jewels – the services holding sensitive data or acting as gateways to other systems.

• Email Platforms: Your primary business email, whether it's Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, should be your number one priority. It's the key to the kingdom.
• Banking and Finance: Lock down all online banking portals and financial software with the strongest MFA on offer. No exceptions.
• Cloud Services and VPN: Any platform where company data lives (think Dropbox, your CRM, or SharePoint) and your remote access VPN absolutely needs this extra layer.

It's worth noting that while MFA is a huge security upgrade, criminals are always trying to find a way around it. We're now seeing a rise in MFA fatigue attacks, where scammers bombard a user's phone with push notifications, hoping they'll just hit 'approve' to make them stop. This is a perfect example of why ongoing staff training is so vital.

For businesses on Microsoft 365, you can get incredibly granular with how and when MFA is triggered. We walk you through the details in our guide on setting up Microsoft 365 Conditional Access.

It's Time to Strengthen Your Password Policies

MFA is a game-changer, but it works best when paired with smarter password habits. Far too many breaches happen simply because an employee used the same weak password for multiple services. A strong password policy is essential, but it doesn't have to be a source of frustration for your team.

My advice? Ditch the outdated rules that force people to create complex, impossible-to-remember passwords that just end up on a sticky note. Instead, focus on length and uniqueness. Encourage the use of passphrases—long, memorable phrases—and get a password manager for your team.

Password managers are brilliant. They generate and store unique, incredibly strong passwords for every single site and service. Your team members only have to remember one master password to unlock their secure vault. This one tool can eliminate the dangerous habit of password reuse almost overnight. It's one of the biggest and easiest security wins you can get.

Creating Your Phishing Incident Response Plan

Let's be realistic: no matter how good your defences are, a well-crafted phishing attack might slip through. When that happens, the absolute worst thing you can do is panic. A clear head and a solid plan can turn a potential disaster into a minor hiccup.

This is where your incident response plan comes in. Forget about a dense, 50-page binder nobody will ever read. What you need is a simple, clear checklist. The goal is to give your team a script to follow in those first crucial moments, replacing guesswork with confident, decisive action.

Your Immediate First Steps

The second a breach is suspected, time is of the essence. Your team needs to know exactly what to do to stop an attacker from digging deeper into your network or stealing more data.

Here are the first three things that must happen, without fail:

• Isolate the Device: The very first move is to disconnect the compromised computer or phone from the network. That means turning off the Wi-Fi and pulling out any ethernet cables. This puts the infected machine in quarantine, stopping the threat from spreading.
• Change Passwords Immediately: The person whose account was compromised needs to change their password for that specific service right away. And if they’ve been reusing that same password on other accounts (we know it happens), those need changing too.
• Notify the Right People: Your plan must be crystal clear about who gets the first call. Usually, this will be your IT support team or a designated person within your company who 'owns' cyber security.

For any of this to work in a real crisis, your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have to be straightforward and easy to follow. It's worth learning how to create SOPs that your team will actually use so there's no confusion when it counts.

Don't forget your legal duties. In the UK, if a breach involves personal data, you're often required to report it to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under GDPR. The clock starts ticking immediately, and you typically have just 72 hours. Your plan needs to include a check for this.

This simple infographic shows how a layered defence works in practice. Even if a scammer gets a password, something like Multi-Factor Authentication can still slam the door shut.

It’s a powerful reminder that even if one control fails, another can save the day. For a deeper dive into building out your entire strategy, take a look at our complete guide to cyber incident response planning.

Your Phishing Protection Questions, Answered

Even with the best strategy, questions always pop up. When it comes to phishing, understanding the finer details is often what separates a near-miss from a disaster. Let's tackle some of the most common queries I hear from UK business owners – the real-world concerns that can truly make or break your security.

Getting clear, straightforward answers helps cut through the jargon and gives you the confidence to make the right call for your company's safety.

Are Free Email Services Like Gmail Good Enough for a Business?

It’s a fair question. Are free services like Gmail or Outlook enough to protect a business? While they have some excellent built-in filters that catch everyday spam, they just weren't built for business-level security. Think of them as a decent starting point, but they’re far from a complete solution.

To properly defend your business, you need dedicated layers on top. Things like a secure email gateway and advanced threat protection are designed specifically to spot sophisticated spear phishing and impersonation attacks—the very threats engineered to sail right past standard filters. Relying only on the default security leaves your business vulnerable to targeted attacks that could lead to serious financial loss.

How Often Should We Run Phishing Tests?

For most businesses, running a phishing simulation every quarter is the sweet spot. Testing your team every three months keeps cybersecurity fresh in their minds, but it's not so frequent that they start suffering from 'test fatigue' and just ignore the exercises.

The real trick is to keep the simulations varied and relevant. Make sure your tests mimic the kinds of real-world threats criminals are actually using out in the wild.

• Bogus Invoices: An email that looks like it's from a supplier, complete with a link for an "urgent" payment.
• Fake Password Resets: A message pretending to be from your IT provider or a service like Microsoft 365, asking you to reset your password.
• "Urgent" CEO Requests: That classic scam where an email, seemingly from the boss, asks an employee to quickly buy some gift cards for a client.

Remember, the point of a simulation isn't to catch people out or embarrass them. It's to create a memorable, hands-on learning opportunity. Always follow up with immediate, positive feedback that reinforces the secure habits you want to build.

Do We Really Need an Incident Response Plan?

Yes, one hundred percent. For a small business, having a phishing incident response plan is arguably even more critical. A single successful attack can have a much bigger, and sometimes devastating, impact when you have fewer resources to fall back on.

The good news is your plan doesn't need to be some complex, 50-page document.

It can be a simple, one-page checklist that spells out exactly what to do and who to call. This simple step removes panic and guesswork when a crisis hits, letting you respond faster and more effectively to contain the damage.

At HGC IT Solutions, we provide the expert guidance and robust security tools UK businesses need to build a resilient defence against phishing. Secure your business with our managed IT services today.