1Password introduces built-in phishing protection

Phishing attacks come from all kinds of angles and AI is making them harder than ever to spot as you can no longer rely on the old giveaways like poor grammar. What’s more it only needs a momentary lapse of judgment to fall victim and give away key details.

This is why password management company 1Password is beginning the rollout of a phishing prevention feature to act as that second pair of eyes and stop users before they share their passwords with scammers.

!Password research finds that 89 percent of Americans have encountered a phishing scam, and 61 percent have actually been phished. Clearly, people need help defending themselves.

Until now when a 1Password user clicked a link where the URL doesn’t match their saved login, the app wouldn’t autofill their credentials. That’s an important first step. However, in those situations, users may not understand why their credentials aren’t being autofilled and try to manually copy and paste them to the fake website.

The new feature adds an extra layer of protection. When a user attempts to paste their credentials, the 1Password browser extension displays a pop-up warning, prompting them to pause and exercise caution before proceeding.

For individual and family plan users, this feature will be enabled by default once it’s rolled out. For businesses Admins can enable this for their employees in Authentication Policies in the 1Password admin console.

According to the research the most common places people encounter phishing are: personal email (45 percent), text messages (41 percent), social media (38 percent), phone calls (28 percent), and online ads or search results (26 percent).

Those in work are 16 percent more likely to have fallen for a phishing scam than non-workers (67 percent vs 51 percent). 36 percent of workers surveyed admitted they had clicked on a suspicious link in a work email. Of those, 26 percent thought they were were responding to HR or their boss — both of which can trigger a sense of emotional and financial urgency.

Getting ahead of phishing attacks is all about communication, that’s what disrupts the scammer’s plan,” says Dave Lewis, global advisory CISO at 1Password. “The most important thing an employee can do if they receive a suspicious message is tell someone. A lot of attacks could be prevented by simply knocking on the cubicle next door and saying ‘hey, does this look right to you?’ If someone believes they’ve already been phished, they should notify IT immediately. Those are the skills you learn with good training, and they need to be constantly reinforced, so people remember them when they get those urgent, scary-looking messages.”

You can read more on the 1Password blog.

Image credit: 1Password