What Is Phishing and Why Your Inbox Is at Risk

Phishing is the leading cause of security breaches in small- and mid-sized businesses. It’s when attackers impersonate trusted contacts—clients, suppliers, or even colleagues—to trick you into revealing passwords, clicking malicious links, or opening infected attachments.

Across Liverpool, Wirral, Merseyside, and Cheshire, we see phishing attempts daily: a spoofed invoice request here, a “password reset” email there. Without the right email protection in place, one click can cost you thousands in fraud, remediation, and downtime.

The True Cost of a Phishing Attack

  • Financial Loss: Fraudulent invoices or wire-transfer requests can siphon off company funds before you even realise something’s wrong.
  • Data Breaches: A compromised account often leads to deeper network access, exposing client data and trade secrets.
  • Operational Disruption: Cleaning up after an attack means investigation, password resets, system scans—and it can take days or weeks.
  • Reputation Damage: Clients need to trust you with sensitive information. A breach shakes confidence and can drive business elsewhere.

Why Basic Spam Filters Aren’t Enough

Office 365 and Google Workspace include built-in spam and malware filters—but they’re generic, one-size-fits-all solutions. Today’s phishing campaigns use:

  • Personalisation: Leveraging social media or previous correspondence to craft convincing messages.
  • URL Obfuscation: Hiding dangerous links behind seemingly legitimate domains.
  • Zero-Day Malware: Sending attachments that evade signature-based scanners.

These sophisticated tactics slip past simple filters. You need a specialised layer of defence focused solely on phishing—and tuned to your organisation’s unique email patterns.

Introducing Graphus: Smarter, Faster Email Protection

Graphus sits on top of your existing email platform, adding an AI-driven phishing defence that learns from every message:

  1. Community Threat Intelligence
    Graphus monitors phishing attempts across thousands of organisations. When one company is targeted, protections update instantly for every client.
  2. Behavioural Analysis
    Instead of relying on static blacklists, Graphus profiles senders and recipients. If an email deviates from normal patterns (e.g., sudden “urgent” invoice requests), it’s flagged.
  3. Automated Remediation
    Suspect emails are automatically quarantined or moved to a review folder—even before a user sees them. Remediation actions (like deleting or notifying admin) happen in seconds.

Balancing Protection and Deliverability

A common fear is “Will we miss important emails?” Effective email security isn’t just about blocking threats—it’s about tuning filters to avoid false positives:

  • Custom Allow-Lists
    We’ll work with you to whitelist key suppliers, clients, and internal domains so legitimate emails always land in your inbox.
  • Quarantine Review Workflows
    Your admins get daily reports of quarantined messages. A one-click “release” lets you retrieve any mistakenly blocked email.
  • User-Friendly Alerts
    When Graphus flags a message, your team sees clear, non-technical warnings—so they know exactly why an email was held and how to respond.

Our Stacked Approach to Email Security

Email protection is most effective when combined with other layers:

  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365
    Provides baseline scanning for malware and unsafe links.
  • Graphus
    Adds AI-driven phishing detection, behavioural profiling, and community intelligence.
  • User Training & Phishing Simulations
    We run regular, customised exercises to keep your staff sharp and alert to new phishing tricks.

Together, these layers create “defence in depth,” ensuring that if one control misses a threat, another catches it.

The Risks of Not Investing

  • A Liverpool law firm paid out £20,000 after a partner impersonation email tricked staff into wiring funds.
  • A Wirral retailer suffered a data breach when a compromised mailbox led to unapproved invoice downloads.
  • A Merseyside charity lost donor trust following a phishing attack that exposed supporter details.

Without specialised filtering and remediation, every business is one click away from serious harm.

How We Implement and Manage Your Email Protection

  1. Discovery & Planning
    We assess your current email platform, user patterns, and threat exposure.
  2. Seamless Deployment
    Our engineers layer Graphus atop Exchange Online or Google Workspace with zero downtime.
  3. Filter Tuning & Whitelisting
    We configure allow-lists, quarantine policies, and user notifications to balance security and deliverability.
  4. Ongoing Monitoring & Reporting
    Weekly dashboards show threat trends, released messages, and suggested policy tweaks.
  5. User Awareness Training
    Quarterly phishing simulations and bite-sized training modules keep your team one step ahead of attackers.

Ready to Protect Your Inbox?

Don’t wait for the next phishing storm to hit Merseyside. Contact HiltDigital today for a free consultation on AI-driven email protection with Graphus—and give your business the confidence to communicate securely.