Phishing protection that layers: filter the obvious, limit the damage, train for the rest.
Email filters catch the mass-produced attacks; the well-crafted phish that redirects a payment slips through. Real protection is layered: technical controls in Defender for Office 365 and your email authentication records, identity controls that stop a stolen password becoming a compromised account, and a human layer of awareness training and simulated phishing that is measured rather than assumed. We deliver all three, remotely, as one program.
- Three layersEmail, identity, human
- DMARCStaged to enforcement, not left at monitor
- MonthlySimulated phishing cadence
- BECThe loss this program exists to prevent
Eight controls across email, identity, and human layers.
Defender for Office 365, tuned
Safe Attachments, Safe Links, anti-phishing policies, anti-spoofing and impersonation protection, configured around your sector, your communication patterns and the people attackers would actually impersonate rather than left at defaults.
DMARC, SPF, DKIM enforcement
Email authentication configured to reject spoofed inbound mail and protect your own domain from being used against your customers. DMARC reports monitored, then quarantine and reject policies enforced in stages once authentication is stable.
Anti-impersonation and BEC protection
Business email compromise detection: lookalike domains, display-name spoofing, payment-redirect attempts, finance-team impersonation. Per-user impersonation protection configured for executives and the people who approve payments.
URL detonation and attachment sandboxing
Suspicious URLs detonated before delivery and attachments scanned dynamically rather than only against signatures, which is what catches the payload nobody has seen before.
Phishing-resistant MFA
When somebody does enter credentials on a fake page, phishing-resistant MFA (FIDO2 security keys, passkeys, certificate-based authentication where feasible) stops the stolen password becoming a compromised account. This layer is what your cyber insurer asks about first.
Post-compromise monitoring
If an account is compromised anyway, the signals are watchable: unusual sign-in patterns, impossible travel, new mailbox forwarding rules, unexpected OAuth application grants. Monitoring those turns a breach into a contained incident.
Security awareness training
Recurring micro-training on phishing recognition, vishing, smishing and social engineering, role-based for finance, HR, executives and IT, because those groups are targeted differently and generic content does not stick.
Simulated phishing campaigns
Monthly simulated phishing sent to your staff, with click rate, report rate and credential-disclosure rate tracked over time. The trend, not any single campaign, is what shows the human layer improving.
Four reasons US businesses choose GR for phishing defense.
Microsoft-native, tuned for your environment
Defender for Office 365 works for everyone in default configuration, and defaults protect nobody in particular. As a Microsoft partner we tune it to your sector, your false-positive tolerance, and the specific people and vendor domains that appear in your payment conversations.
Technical and human layers together
Most providers do one: technical filtering or awareness training. The combined effect is multiplicative, because the filter shrinks the volume reaching people while training changes what people do with what remains. Running both under one accountable team is the point of the program.
Measured, not asserted
A monthly report shows click rate, report rate and filter activity trending over time, in language your leadership can read. That trend is also exactly the evidence a cyber insurance renewal or a SOC 2 auditor asks for, produced as a byproduct of running the program.
Role-based training, not one-size-fits-all
Finance teams trained on payment-redirect scams. HR trained on resume-attachment malware. Executives trained on whaling and BEC. IT trained on credential harvest and fake vendor support. Higher relevance produces higher retention, which is what changes behavior.
Six business profiles where phishing protection is critical.
Finance and accounting departments
The highest-value target for BEC and payment-redirect scams, and often the entry point for ransomware. The FBI has tracked BEC among the costliest cybercrime categories reported by US businesses for years.
HR and recruiting
Resume-attachment malware, fake-applicant social engineering, and employee impersonation during onboarding, when new hires expect unusual requests.
C-suite and executive teams
Whaling attacks, executive impersonation, and urgent wire-transfer requests that trade on authority and time pressure.
IT and engineering teams
Credential-harvest attacks, fake vendor-portal emails, and fake Microsoft-support social engineering aimed at the accounts with the most access.
Customer-service teams
Customer impersonation, account-takeover precursor emails, and fake refund-request schemes against the people trained to be helpful.
Regulated and insured firms
HIPAA-covered entities, firms under the FTC Safeguards Rule or NYDFS Part 500, SOC 2 candidates, and anybody renewing cyber insurance: phishing controls are a recognized safeguard every one of those processes asks about.
Three approaches, with trade-offs.
| Feature | Layered (GR) | Email filter only | Training only |
|---|---|---|---|
Advanced filtering tuned | Defaults | ||
DMARC enforcement | |||
Impersonation protection configured | |||
Phishing-resistant MFA enforced | |||
Awareness training | Recurring, role-based | Annual | |
Simulated phishing | Monthly | Occasional | |
Click-rate trend monitored | |||
Post-compromise monitoring | |||
Covers the phish the filter misses | Yes | No | Partly |
Evidence for insurer or auditor | Strong | Partial | Weak |
From audit to ongoing operations in 6-8 weeks.
- 1
Phishing-readiness audit
1-2 weeks
Review current email security configuration, DMARC posture, MFA enforcement, training history and recent incident pattern. Output: a written gap report with a prioritized remediation roadmap, yours to keep either way.
- 2
Technical foundation build
2-3 weeks
Defender for Office 365 tuned, SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured with a staged path to enforcement, impersonation protection populated per user and per domain, and MFA enforcement gaps closed with phishing-resistant methods where feasible.
- 3
Post-compromise monitoring activated
1 week
Sign-in anomalies, new mailbox forwarding rules and OAuth application grants watched, so a credential that does get phished is caught in the minutes after use rather than the weeks after.
- 4
Baseline training and first simulation
2-3 weeks
All-staff baseline training, role-based deep-dives for finance, HR, executives and IT, and a first simulated phishing campaign to establish the click-rate baseline. Results communicated to leadership with the trend that follows.
- 5
Ongoing operations
Continuous
Monthly simulated phishing, quarterly micro-training, a monthly report covering click rate, report rate and filter activity, and continuous monitoring for post-compromise signals. The program runs on a rhythm, not on memory.
What buyers ask before engaging.
Services that pair with phishing protection.
Security awareness training
The standalone human-layer program, or bundled into phishing protection.
Anti-phishing policies
The Microsoft 365 policy layer: impersonation protection, spoof intelligence, thresholds.
Microsoft Entra
Identity and Conditional Access, including the MFA enforcement this program depends on.
Book a phishing-readiness audit and get a written gap report.
A 1-2 week remote audit covering your filter configuration, DMARC posture, MFA enforcement, training history and incident pattern. Output: a written gap report with a prioritized remediation roadmap, whether or not you engage us for the fixes.
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