Phishing is still one of the most effective ways for attackers to get into an organisation. They do not always need to break through complex systems or find a technical flaw in your infrastructure. Very often, they just need one person to click a link, open an attachment, approve a login, or hand over credentials.
That is why phishing remains such a serious risk. It targets people, timing, and routine. A message can look as though it came from Microsoft 365, a supplier, your bank, a senior colleague, or your own finance team. If that message lands at the wrong moment, when someone is busy or distracted, it only takes one mistake for a wider security incident to begin.
For UK organisations, this risk is not theoretical. The UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found that 43% of businesses and 30% of charities identified a cyber security breach or attack in the previous 12 months. Among organisations that identified a breach or attack, phishing was the most common type reported, affecting 85% of those businesses and 86% of those charities.
The government’s Cyber Security Longitudinal Survey, published on 17 February 2026, also found that around three-quarters of organisations reported phishing incidents, including 76% of businesses and 73% of charities.
The most effective response is not to rely on one tool or one annual training session. You need layers. Strong anti-phishing protection comes from a mix of technical controls, access controls, user awareness, monitoring, testing, and a clear response plan. When those layers work together, your organisation becomes much harder to compromise.
Use strong email filtering as your first line of defence
The first control every organisation should implement is strong email filtering. This is what helps reduce the number of dangerous messages that ever reach your users in the first place.
A good filtering setup should block known malicious senders, suspicious attachments, harmful links, and obvious spoofing attempts. It should also identify unusual patterns, such as a message that appears internal but actually comes from outside the business, or a message that uses language, domains, or formatting that does not fit normal behaviour.
This matters because your users should not be the only thing standing between a malicious email and a serious incident. The fewer suspicious messages that land in inboxes, the fewer opportunities attackers have to succeed.
That fits closely with Northern Star’s Anti Phishing service, which focuses on practical protection, user awareness, and rapid response rather than waiting until after a compromise has already happened.
Enforce multi-factor authentication on all important accounts
If someone does fall for a phishing email and gives away a password, multi-factor authentication can stop that stolen credential from turning into a breach.
You should treat MFA as essential for email accounts, remote access, cloud platforms, finance systems, admin accounts, password managers, and any service that gives access to sensitive data or broader systems. Email is especially important because a compromised mailbox often gives attackers a path into password resets, internal impersonation, and wider account takeover.
It is also worth remembering that not all MFA methods offer the same protection. The NCSC says its updated guidance recommends techniques that give better protection against phishing attacks, and it identifies FIDO2 MFA as providing phishing resistance.
For many organisations, this links directly to Cloud Services / Office 365, because Microsoft 365 remains one of the most common targets for phishing and account takeover attempts. Strong identity controls are a key part of keeping cloud platforms secure and usable.
Train your users regularly, not just once a year
One-off awareness training is not enough. Attackers keep adapting, and your people need to keep up.
Phishing emails now look far more polished than they used to. They can mimic login alerts, invoice queries, voicemail notifications, payroll changes, courier updates, and urgent requests from senior staff. Some are full of spelling errors, but many are well written and convincing. That is why awareness needs to be regular, relevant, and tied to the kinds of messages your staff actually receive.
Good training should help your users spot the warning signs, but it should also explain what to do next. Your people should know how to report suspicious emails, when to escalate concerns, and why acting early matters. They do not need to become cyber security specialists. They just need enough confidence to pause, question, and report.
The NCSC’s phishing guidance makes the same point in a practical way. It recommends mitigations that improve resilience while minimising disruption to user productivity, and it notes that expecting staff to identify and delete all phishing emails is unrealistic.
Run phishing simulations to measure real behaviour
Training shows what users should do. Simulated phishing shows what they actually do.
That makes phishing simulations an important control for any organisation that wants a realistic picture of its exposure. They help you understand whether users are clicking links, opening attachments, entering passwords, or reporting suspicious emails properly. They also help you identify trends across teams, roles, and locations.
The goal should never be to blame or embarrass people. The point is to learn where the gaps are so you can improve training, adjust controls, and support the parts of the organisation that need extra attention.
This kind of proactive assessment fits well with Northern Star’s broader Security Services approach, which is built around reducing risk, responding quickly, and helping businesses strengthen their overall protection.
Protect your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
If you want to make it harder for attackers to impersonate your organisation, you need proper email authentication in place.
SPF helps define which servers are allowed to send mail on behalf of your domain. DKIM helps verify that an email has not been altered in transit. DMARC ties those controls together and tells receiving systems what to do when messages fail authentication. It also gives you reporting so you can see where abuse or misconfiguration may be happening.
These controls will not stop every phishing email, especially when attackers use lookalike domains rather than your real one. However, they are still a core part of a sensible anti-phishing strategy. Without them, you make it much easier for attackers to send messages that appear to come from your business.
For many organisations, setting this up properly benefits from expert Consulting, especially where there are multiple platforms, legacy systems, third-party senders, or internal ownership issues to manage.
Reduce the damage with least-privilege access
Even the best anti-phishing controls will not stop every attempt. That is why you also need to limit what a compromised account can do.
Least-privilege access means users only have the permissions they genuinely need. If an attacker steals one account, you want that account boxed in. You do not want it to have broad access to finance systems, HR records, shared folders, privileged tools, or mailbox permissions it should never have had in the first place.
This applies even more strongly to administrative access. Admin accounts should be kept separate from day-to-day user accounts. Your IT team should not be browsing email or the web with elevated privileges. That only increases the potential impact of a successful phishing attack.
Phishing defence is not only about stopping the first click. It is also about limiting what happens afterwards.
Use endpoint detection and response for post-click protection
Someone in your organisation may still click a malicious link or open a harmful file. When that happens, you need visibility into what the attacker is trying to do next.
Endpoint detection and response helps identify suspicious behaviour on devices, such as unusual script activity, unexpected downloads, suspicious process launches, or attempts to move laterally. That gives your team a much better chance of containing a threat before it becomes a larger incident.
Northern Star’s article on Top 5 Reasons why your business needs EDR highlights EDR as a way to improve threat detection and incident response, including isolating infected endpoints, blocking malicious processes, and monitoring endpoint activity in real time.
This is one of the most valuable controls you can add to your anti-phishing strategy because it assumes that prevention alone is not enough.
Make suspicious email reporting quick and simple
Your users need an easy way to do the right thing.
If reporting a suspicious email is confusing or slow, people are far less likely to bother. In practice, you should have a straightforward internal process backed by a clear response workflow. That might include a report button in Outlook, a dedicated mailbox, or a simple internal route to your IT team or cyber partner.
The NCSC says it is free to report a suspicious email and that doing so can help reduce scam communications and protect others. It also provides guidance on configuring Microsoft Outlook 365’s Report Phishing add-in and notes that suspicious emails can be forwarded to report@phishing.gov.uk.
Internally, the same principle applies. Reporting should feel normal, supported, and worthwhile. If one person receives a malicious email, others may already have it too. Fast reporting gives you a chance to remove messages, warn staff, block indicators, and stop more damage.
That works best when you have reliable IT support in place to respond quickly and consistently.
Monitor for exposed credentials on the dark web
Phishing risk does not begin and end in the inbox. Sometimes the credentials attackers use have already been exposed somewhere else.
Dark web monitoring can help you identify whether company email addresses, passwords, login details, or other sensitive business data have appeared in places linked to cybercrime. That matters because exposed credentials often become the next step in account takeover, impersonation, or targeted phishing.
Northern Star’s Dark Web Monitoring service is positioned around helping businesses identify exposed credentials, leaked company data, and early warning signs before those issues become bigger security problems. It also highlights practical next steps, such as resetting passwords, reviewing access, and carrying out wider checks.
If you discover these issues early, you have a far better chance of reducing harm.
Keep systems patched and security basics in place
Phishing often opens the door, but attackers usually need something else to turn that opportunity into a deeper compromise. That is where security basics matter.
You need supported software, timely patching, strong password policies, secure device configuration, malware protection, and sensible controls around remote access. If a phishing attempt lands on an unpatched device or a poorly controlled environment, the consequences can become much more serious.
Northern Star’s wider Hardware and Software and Security Services pages reflect that broader approach, combining day-to-day IT foundations with stronger cyber protection.
Anti-phishing is strongest when it sits on top of good operational discipline.
Test your wider environment with penetration testing
Phishing defence should never be treated as an isolated email problem. It should form part of a wider security programme that gets tested properly.
Regular Penetration Testing helps you understand how an attacker might move through your environment after gaining initial access. It can highlight weaknesses in network segmentation, privilege management, external exposure, monitoring, and internal controls.
Northern Star’s penetration testing content describes the service as a way to identify vulnerabilities and improve security posture through ongoing assessments and practical remediation. Its article The Importance of Penetration Testing in Cybersecurity also frames testing as a proactive way to detect and address weaknesses before they are exploited.
That makes it highly relevant to phishing, because the real damage often happens after the initial user action.
Use Cyber Essentials as a sensible baseline
If your organisation wants a practical baseline for common cyber risks, Cyber Essentials remains a strong starting point in the UK.
Northern Star’s article Why Your Business Should Become Cyber Essentials Accredited supports this direction, and the scheme is designed to help organisations put core protections in place against common online threats. While Cyber Essentials does not solve phishing on its own, it supports many of the controls that make phishing less damaging, including secure configuration, access control, patching, and malware protection.
For many organisations, it is a sensible way to strengthen the basics before moving into more advanced controls.
Build an incident response plan for phishing events
No matter how strong your controls are, you should assume that something will eventually get through. When that happens, speed and clarity matter.
Your response plan should set out exactly what happens when someone clicks a malicious link, opens a suspicious attachment, or enters credentials into a fake page.
That plan should cover:
- Who staff report to
- How suspicious emails are reviewed
- When affected accounts are reset
- How devices are isolated and checked
- When wider warnings go to staff
- How finance or leadership teams are involved
- When external support is needed
- How lessons are fed back into controls and training
The NCSC also provides clear advice for people who think they may have shared sensitive information, including taking immediate steps to protect accounts and respond quickly.
A documented response process turns a possible crisis into a more manageable event.
Why a layered approach works best
The biggest mistake organisations make is looking for one silver bullet. There is not one.
Email filtering reduces exposure. MFA cuts the value of stolen passwords. User training improves judgement. Simulations show where behaviour still needs work. Least-privilege access reduces the blast radius. EDR helps you catch post-click activity. Dark web monitoring gives you visibility into exposed credentials. Penetration testing shows how the wider environment would hold up. Baseline frameworks such as Cyber Essentials strengthen the fundamentals.
That is how you reduce phishing risk properly. You do not rely on one product, one person, or one policy. You build layers that support each other.
