Internet is a place full of resources and incredible possibilities, the digital evolution is pushing brands, marketplaces, and the economy to evolve in this sense with benefits and incredible results on a global level. The last two years – from 2020 to 2022 have been years of strong digital growth, also driven by the global epidemic and other trends that have led all sectors to revolutionize themselves to become competitive also on a digital level.
However, it must also be remembered that in the midst of all this myriad of possibilities there are dangers that can ruin the experience of users and also of the companies themselves during the conduct of their activities.
Especially in the last period, the onset of problems and digital fraud is spreading, putting the security of many users and people who populate the web at risk.
Fortunately, there are several precautions and systems to safeguard yourself and protect yourself from attacks that undermine digital security.
Attacks are usually fraudulent in nature and aim to try to steal sensitive data (name, surname, password, identification codes, bank codes, credit card numbers, etc.)
Anyone can run into these types of accidents and problems, so it is always very important to pay close attention to the sites you visit, and the links that are clicked and make sure you keep your personal data safe by protecting them with a password and storing them in spaces. safe. It is always good to avoid having post-its or paper and physical tickets near the devices used for browsing the web, rather than trying to approach cloud password protection systems that are much more secure. In any case, there are many other precautions to prevent the onset of these phenomena.
There are different types of digital attacks, although in today’s article we will focus mainly on the problem that falls under the name of Phishing – with its sub-category called Smishing.
We will see in detail some aspects of this problem, but above all, we will explain how you prevent Phishing with JotURL Branded Links.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is one of the types of digital problems that can be encountered online, it usually consists of a scam conveyed through email.
Phishing emails are traps in which the user is usually convinced to carry out operations, in which he tries to be deceived, perhaps to click on an unsafe and non-branded link that can redirect them to a site created specifically to steal money, personal data, and information to unfortunates.
One of the best practices to avoid having repercussions is to never write your password and your personal contact ID in the email, even if requested by someone who may seem reliable. However, there are many other ways to safeguard yourself, you will read later in the article how to prevent Phishing with JotURL services.
As shown in the graph above, the sector most affected by Phishing episodes is the financial sector. It is in fact very common for phishing to occur through a fake email in which the sender pretends to be the operator of a bank or financial service – for the sole purpose of stealing sensitive information to access the victim’s money.
It can therefore be said without a shadow of a doubt that banks are the activities that risk being most negatively affected by Phishing.
Furthermore, from another graph, you can see the trend and fluctuation of the Phishing phenomenon from January 2009 to March 2021. As you can see during 2020 there have been incredible peaks and records of recognized phishing attacks, and it is probable that following this trend and this growth curve the phenomena are increasing.
Precisely for this reason, preventing Phishing is something very important.
What is Smishing?
Perhaps you have heard the word Smishing, or maybe you have read it in some text message or email informing you to be careful. Smishing is nothing more than a sub-category of Phishing.
It follows the same scam methods as Phishing but is conveyed on mobile phones via SMS and not via email or other forms of contact.
So remember to also pay close attention to the links and requests that are forwarded via SMS or Whatsapp Messenger, Telegram, and other messaging systems on the phone.
Since smishing is a category that is part of Phishing, it is also possible to find solutions for this.
Now we will see in detail how to prevent Phishing with JotURL.
These indications also apply to Smishing, of course.
How to prevent Phishing with JotURL services
In this part of the article, we will carefully see how to prevent Phishing with JotURL branded links and other services.
In addition to the use of 100% branded and customizable links – which already basically help in brand recognition and in making the contents safer – JotURL has a whole kit developed and designed specifically to preserve the security of its links and contents to the inside.
Each new domain entered within JotURL can in fact be associated simply with an SSL Certificate that can be generated for free through integration with Let’s Encrypt, making the destination domain of your URLs secure. This, in addition to providing security, also guarantees greater visibility, the ability to better rank their content on social networks and on Google, as well as greater perceived trust by the user.
The Brand section of JotURL is entirely focused on trying to provide tools that can improve the solidity of a brand as well as its identity.
We also provide a password-protected link system and have rock-solid APIs with over 450 endpoints that allow easy integration on other platforms – as well as creating more massive operations such as large-scale branded link creation or link import. from an old provider.
The workspaces can be managed from the panel and it is possible to create permissions for each individual user invited within the project, in this way you can always have full control of the links created within JotURL.
The JotURL tools also include the presence of a monitoring tool that takes care of verifying the functionality of the link, but also if the contents within it have been corrupted/compromised. The owner of the link will be notified via e-mail in real-time so that he can immediately act to restore the link or remove it in case of problems and attacks.
All these features make the use and creation of JotURL links safe, thus guaranteeing a prevention capacity against phishing operations that are debased.
We would like to make a clarification:
Phishing is a crime, therefore JotURL will always ban and deviate from harmful attitudes and behaviors that can be hidden within our links. We do not tolerate that our services can be employed and used for petty purposes.
Any link containing phishing, scam, or other harmful content is deleted immediately, and the owner of those links is blocked so that they cannot create new malicious tracking links and then reported to the competent authorities.
Currently, we have not encountered phishing phenomena or other problems as the basic use of branded domains and the subscription to a paid service discourages scammers. These usually use free and unbranded link creation services which for this reason are less secure than JotURL.
Now let’s analyze in more detail how to prevent Phishing with JotURL Branded Links and Domains.
Branded Links and Domains
Here’s how to prevent Phishing with JotURL Branded Links.
Creating branded links can prevent phishing/smishing problems in two different ways.
1) The creation of Branded Links allows you to create 100% optimized and customizable links. These links can not only feature unique and readily identifiable domains, but they can also offer security and become easily memorable. Creating a branded link is therefore helpful for users who will be able to immediately understand the source of the link. The URL with your branded domain within the links used for your campaigns is a signature, a guarantee, a pact that puts the user in a position to trust you. This will effectively help your users to recognize a genuine link from a fake one that may contain malicious material.
If you use the same unbranded domains used by scammers and hackers, your users can NEVER 100% trust you!
2) The creation of Branded Links discourages phishing because it requires a lot more care and attention. First, a person must have a second-level domain that he must purchase from a provider and maintain – he must have an SSL certificate, must initiate a whole series of security procedures, and must commit to using a service that is often not free.
For a scammer, therefore, it is not convenient to use a platform like JotURL to create links that contain harmful elements (also because in our case they would be cut off at the root and blocked before even being able to do so.)
Branded links are safe for this too, because it is much more common for attackers to scam people to rely on free methods of creating links.
The use of branded links can therefore lead to immediate advantages in solving phishing problems.
- discourages phishing at its root
- makes your content recognizable at a glance, helping your users.
- improves users’ sense of link trust towards you
- provides reference points for all your users
- stronger and more solid brand identity
Security & Safety First
Since November 2021 JotURL is ISO 27001: 2013 and CSA STAR certified, these certifications attest to the achievement of high international standards in the management of information and related data security.
ISO / IEC 27001 is an international standard on how to manage information security. It details the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS), the purpose of which is to help organizations make their information assets more secure.
The ISO 27001: 2013 certification attests the presence of the aforementioned requirements.
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the industry’s most powerful program aimed at ensuring security in the Cloud, while CSA STAR certification addresses specific needs for security auditing in the cloud computing environment and certifies that a company meets the program requirements itself.
Achieving these results offers JotURL the opportunity to offer all its customers an improved level of IT security and protection of related data, in compliance with the highest international standards.
You can find more information about this topic at this link.
Security and respect in data processing will always be a priority within JotURL – also for this JotURL is an excellent solution to prevent phishing and other bad practices that can harm your business or your customers.
Conclusion
Are you tired of having to worry about dangerous phishing incidents? Then try JotURL’s security features and prevent phishing with JotURL Branded Links – create solid URLs to safeguard your business.
Cheers,
JotURL Team
