Trick or Threat? Phishing Emails You Shouldn’t Click on This Month
Updated on October 21, 2025
6 mins to read
October is known for pumpkin spice, falling leaves, and all things frightful. But for your business, the biggest threat lurking isn’t a costumed ghoul—it’s a phishing email.
As the official Cybersecurity Awareness Month encourages vigilance, cybercriminals leverage the seasonal chaos and high-stakes year-end deadlines to deploy their most effective scams. These aren’t just random attacks; they are highly targeted, psychologically manipulative “tricks” designed to harvest credentials, steal data, or deploy ransomware.
Don’t let your team be tricked this season. We’re breaking down the latest phishing emails to watch out for, how to spot them, and how Klik Solutions can ensure your business avoids being haunted by a costly breach.
The Spooky Season of Scams: Why Phishing Spikes in October
Why do attackers ramp up activity just as the holidays begin? It’s a perfect storm of opportunity and psychology.
Connection Between Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Attacker Activity
Ironically, when businesses are most focused on security, they become a target. Attackers know that IT departments are sending out alerts and setting up training. They capitalize on this by mimicking official internal communications:
- Fake Training Invites: Sending emails that look exactly like your cyber awareness month training invite, asking employees to “log in” to a fake portal to complete a quiz.
- System Check Alerts: Posing as the IT team, claiming your system needs an urgent security update due to the awareness campaign.
Psychological Tricks Cybercriminals Use During Seasonal Events
Phishing relies on emotional manipulation, and the Q4 environment enhances this by creating:
- Urgency: Deadlines for year-end goals, shipping cutoffs, and holiday payroll create a sense of frantic urgency, making employees click before they think.
- Distraction: Increased customer traffic, employee vacations, and office party planning erode mental focus and email security vigilance.
- Trust in Brands: Attackers mimic popular shipping, retail, and charity brands that are highly active during the holidays, exploiting consumer trust.
Common Phishing “Tricks” to Watch For This Month
The core goal of a phishing attack is to steal credentials or money. Here are the specific phishing scams businesses need to look out for:
- Fake Cybersecurity Awareness Training Invites: These emails pretend to be from your HR or IT department, claiming mandatory training requires you to click a link to “verify your identity” or “log in.”
- “Update Your Credentials”/“Urgent Login” Messages: Highly effective because they tie into both urgency and perceived security. They claim a recent login attempt failed or your Microsoft 365 credentials expired, prompting an immediate click to a malicious login page.
- Invoice Scams and Fake Payment Requests (BEC): Business Email Compromise (BEC) ramps up. Attackers impersonate a vendor or a senior executive, demanding immediate wire transfers or changing bank details for legitimate-looking invoices.
- Charity or Holiday Donation Fraud: These emails promote fake charities or holiday funds. While targeting finance, they also trick general staff who might use their business email for personal donations.
- Shipping and Package Delivery Alerts: As holiday ordering begins, emails disguised as FedEx, UPS, or Amazon claim there is an issue with an upcoming delivery, forcing the recipient to click to update an address or track information.
Anatomy of a Phishing Email: Signs You’re Being Tricked
Spotting a suspicious email is the first line of defense. Train your team to pause and check for these critical red flags before clicking.
Suspicious Sender Details and Misspelled Domains
- Bad Sender Address: The display name might say “IT Support,” but the actual email address is gibberish or uses a public domain (like gmail.com).
- Subtle Typos: The domain is a near-perfect copy of a real one (typosquatting), like “https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoftt.com” instead of “microsoft.com.” This is a classic phishing prevention check. So review carefully!
Urgent Tone or Emotional Manipulation
- Immediate Action Required: Phrases like “Account Suspended,” “Final Warning,” or “Act Now or Lose Access” are designed to bypass rational thought.
- Authority Figure Impersonation: The sender pretends to be the CEO or CFO, demanding a quick, confidential wire transfer that bypasses normal protocol.
Unexpected Attachments or Links
- Generic Attachments: An attachment named “Invoice-October.zip” or “QuarterlyReport.pdf” that wasn’t requested. These often contain malware or keyloggers.
- Mismatched Links: Hover your cursor over any link (without clicking!). If the URL preview doesn’t match the sender or the destination described in the text, delete the email immediately.
Recent Phishing Campaigns Targeting Businesses
While we can’t share live, confidential case studies, trends from security reports throughout 2025 highlight a few high-impact campaigns:
- Cloud Credential Harvesting: The biggest threat remains emails leading to fake Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace login pages. Once compromised, these accounts are used for business email compromise (sending fraudulent invoices) or to deploy ransomware.
- Supply Chain Impersonation: Attacks are moving away from targeting huge companies directly and are focusing on smaller, less protected SMBs that serve those huge companies (e.g., freight brokers, specialized parts manufacturers). The emails look like legitimate operational communications from a known partner.
The most affected sectors continue to be Finance (due to transfer requests) and Healthcare (due to high-value patient data and high urgency/low staffing).
Don’t Get Haunted by a Breach: How to Stay Protected
Proactive security is the only way to beat modern phishing emails. You must assume that sophisticated emails will reach your employees—the goal is to stop the click.
- Employee Awareness Training and Simulations: Consistent, mandatory training is essential. Run simulated phishing campaigns every month to test and reinforce good behavior. Immediate training for those who click is the most effective deterrent.
- Email Filtering and MFA: Deploy advanced email security filters that use AI to detect malicious intent. Crucially, enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across every single account, especially email, VPN, and any cloud application. MFA is the single most powerful defense against credential theft.
- Regular Password Audits and Security Updates: Use a password manager to enforce unique, complex passwords. Ensure operating systems and applications are always patched and updated to deny attackers easy entry points.
When You’ve Been Phished: What to Do Next
Even with the best training, human error happens. A clear incident response plan saves time and money.
Immediate Response Actions (Report, Disconnect, Reset Passwords)
- Report Immediately: The employee must instantly report the incident to IT/management. No shame, no blame. Speed is everything.
- Disconnect: If credentials were entered, change the compromised password immediately from another, clean device. If a file was downloaded, disconnect the affected machine from the network to prevent malware spread.
- Scan and Audit: Run a full malware scan on the affected device and audit the user’s account for any new rules, login locations, or unauthorized activity.
Incident Response and Follow-Up Procedures
This is where IT expertise is critical. An effective incident response team can determine the scope of the breach, isolate the threat, and ensure all backdoors are closed.
Klik’s Defense Against the Dark Web
You don’t need an enterprise-sized budget to get enterprise-level protection. Klik Solutions specializes in delivering robust, proactive cybersecurity that scales perfectly for SMBs.
We don’t just react to threats; we help you prevent them. Our approach includes:
- Proactive Phishing Detection: We manage and monitor advanced email filtering tools that block malicious emails before they ever reach the inbox.
- Managed Security and MFA Enforcement: We deploy, manage, and enforce strong security policies, including mandatory MFA across your entire organization, closing the biggest security gaps.
- 24/7 Monitoring: Our security operations center (SOC) monitors your network day and night, ensuring that if a threat does slip through, we detect and contain it instantly.
Don’t let October’s “tricks” turn into a breach. Protect your business now with an expert partner: get a free email security assessment from Klik Solutions today.
FAQ
What’s the difference between phishing and spear phishing?
Phishing is a broad, non-specific attack sent to many random recipients (e.g., a generic email from a bank). Spear phishing is highly targeted and personalized, often using specific internal details or job titles to impersonate an executive or vendor. Spear phishing is much harder to detect and is often used in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.
How can I tell if an email link is safe to click?
The most reliable method is to hover your mouse cursor over the link without clicking to see the true destination URL. If the previewed URL doesn’t match the company described in the email, it’s unsafe. When in doubt, type the destination’s correct address directly into your browser.
What should I do if I already clicked on a phishing link?
First, do not enter any credentials. If you did, assume the account is compromised and report the incident to your IT department immediately. Change the password for the compromised account immediately from a known-safe device, and then run a full malware scan on the affected machine.
Are there specific phishing scams to expect during the holidays?
Yes, you should anticipate a surge in invoice fraud demanding urgent holiday payments or changes to bank details. Also watch out for shipping alerts claiming delivery problems and gift card scams where executives ask staff to purchase cards for clients. These scams leverage the seasonal rush and high transaction volume.
