Everyone knows the rule: do not click suspicious links. But phishing emails keep getting harder to spot, and mistakes happen. What actually occurs in the seconds and minutes after someone clicks one?
Understanding this helps you respond faster and limit the damage.
Most phishing links go one of two places: a fake login page or a silent malware download.
Fake login pages are built to look exactly like Microsoft 365, your bank, or whatever the attacker is copying. You type in your credentials, they go straight to the attacker, and you often get redirected to the real site immediately so nothing seems wrong.
Silent downloads exploit vulnerabilities in your browser or operating system to install malware without any obvious action on your part beyond the initial click. No pop-up. No warning. Nothing you would notice.
Once the attacker has your credentials or software on your machine, things move fast. Stolen passwords get tested automatically within minutes on every major service the attacker can think of. If they get into your email, they start reading through it, looking for conversations about payments, invoices, and bank accounts.
Malware often sits quietly for days or weeks, collecting passwords and mapping your network, before doing anything visible. Ransomware typically waits until it has spread as far as possible before locking everything at once.
If someone on your team clicks a phishing link, do not wait to see what happens. Speed matters.
Disconnect the device from the network right away. Turn off Wi-Fi or unplug the ethernet cable. Change the password for any account that may have been entered, using a different device. Enable multi-factor authentication on those accounts. Call your IT support and let them know what happened. If any financial accounts could have been involved, call your bank.
Multi-factor authentication on your email accounts stops the most common and most damaging outcome of a phishing attack. Even with your password stolen, an attacker cannot get in without your phone. It is free to enable and takes about 10 minutes to set up for your whole team.
If you want to know what phishing looks like today, or want to test how your employees respond to a simulated attack, that is something we can help with through our cybersecurity services. It is also worth reading about why small businesses are targeted so often in the first place.