Latest SharePoint phishing attack highlights need for digital literacy

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to design digital workplaces or “offices in the cloud.” These environments enable companies to allow flexible and remote working for their teams. I also teach the digital literacy, fluency, communication and collaboration skills needed to work in these modern technology-rich workplaces.

Cloud computing is an essential part of a well designed digital workplace as it enables anywhere access.

The above falls into the “technology” piece of the digital workplace puzzle. But there are other pieces to the puzzle. One of which is employee or team Digital Literacy and, as is illustrated in this particular example, Information Literacy, which is one of the six Digital Literacy competencies.

The latest SharePoint phishing attack, as reported on by Avanan is an example.

• How to avoid being caught in a phishing attack? From Avanan:
• Be skeptical of any email subject line that capitalizes buzzwords for workplace stress, like URGENT or ACTION REQUIRED.
• Be suspicious of URLs in the body of the email. (Because cloud service providers have pivoted the way organizations share and collaborate on their work, sending links through email is nearly an obsolete practice.)
• When presented with a login page, look at the URL to see if it is actually hosted by the service it is asking you to log into.
• If you receive an unexpected or uncharacteristic email from someone at your organization, contact them to ensure they actually sent it.
• Activate Multi-Factor Authentication to secure your accounts on software platforms.
• How would you rate your team’s Digital Literacy out of 10?

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