Preventing Phishing Attacks: A Practical Guide for Small Business

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At Vigilant Sec, we see every day how small businesses are facing increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks.

Phishing may be a familiar term, but it’s still one of the most common ways attackers breach small businesses. Stolen credentials often lead to lost data, account takeovers, and even ransomware.

Common sense alone can’t stop every attack.

That’s why Vigilant Sec encourages every business to adopt layered defenses against phishing. When we protect customer environments, we tend to assume one thing: your users’ passwords will be stolen.

Some phishing emails hide malicious links as QR codes, which circumvent detections and lead users to expose their mobile devices to phishing platforms.

Common Anti-Phishing Strategies: Benefits and Challenges

Strategy	Benefit	Challenges
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)	Confirms identity beyond passwords	Phishing tools can steal both password + MFA Users may not understand passkeys Rollout can be time-consuming
Password Managers	Reduce password reuse and avoid stolen credentials	Added cost User friction during rollout
Conditional Access (M365)	Restrict logins to trusted users, devices, and locations	May limit personal device use Needs technical skill to manage
Spam Detection (Exchange/Gmail)	Blocks some phishing emails before they reach inboxes	More effective against spam May lag behind new phishing tactics
Email Scanning Products	Enhance Microsoft/Google filtering with additional layers	Cost + overhead False positives Staff time required for alerts

Phishing Prevention = Identity Protection

A strong defense against phishing combines some, or all, of the solutions above. Security training for users helps as well, but can fail as phishing continues to get more sophisticated. True phishing prevention goes further by stopping all unauthorized access.

Here’s how Vigilant Sec helps businesses shift from avoiding risky emails to protecting their entire identity perimeter.

Start with Hardening and MFA

Vigilant Sec recommends hardening, not just alerting, as the best way to defend your business against phishing. Our guided automations help teams strengthen defenses step by step, on a schedule that fits their workflow.

The result? Most attacks are stopped outright, and alerts stay focused on what matters.

Best Practices for Hardening Users Against Phishing

VigilantSec Recommends	VigilantSec Provides
Use Entra Conditional Access: block legacy auth, strengthen admin controls, move users from no-MFA → phishing-resistant MFA	Automations for secure policy templates and guided rollout — helping teams understand and enable settings confidently
Transition to stronger MFA methods: Text → App → Passkey	Visibility into user MFA usage, adoption, and readiness for stricter enforcement
Follow CISA/SCuBA benchmarks for secure configurations	Continuous monitoring of key settings, improvement recommendations, and trend reporting
Review stale/admin/guest accounts regularly	Automated reporting on inactive users and unused paid licenses

Remain Vigilant About Risky Logins

It’s important to understand how long user sessions remain active in Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. By default, Google sessions last about 14 days before users are required to re-authenticate, while Microsoft 365 sessions can persist for up to 90 days, depending on app and tenant settings. That’s a long window for an attacker to maintain access if a session is compromised.

In both platforms, admins can review and managerisky users through their respective security consoles. If there’s any indication a user account may be compromised, it’s always worth revoking active sessions to cut off potential unauthorized access. Even if an attacker still has the user’s password, they’d need to phish the user again to capture a new session and complete MFA, making session revocation a quick and effective containment step.

Best Practices for Responding to Risky Logins

VigilantSec Recommends	VigilantSec Provides
Create notifications for risky logins	24/7 monitoring and investigation of all login events
Combine native & custom detections	Extensive library of vendor, community, and Vigilant Sec detections
Monitor password resets & device registrations	Detection coverage across authentication + post-login behavior
Establish clear triage workflows	Custom visualization tools for unusual activity & clear summaries
Learn vendor response actions (revoke sessions, reset passwords)	Automations for instant, high-confidence response
Be ready for real-time judgment calls	Experience + confidence to protect without disrupting business