What is Phishing?
Phishing is a type of social engineering that targets individuals through emails, phone calls, text messages, or web links. Its goal is to deceive people into disclosing sensitive information. Attackers use these tactics to trick people into sharing private data, downloading malicious software, or falling victim to harmful activities that compromise their security.
Phishing attacks often target critical networks and resources by taking advantage of human error, using manipulation tactics such as fabricated stories and pressure to get victims to act against their best interests. These cyber threats have become increasingly sophisticated, making it essential to fully understand the nature of phishing in order to effectively counter it.
By exploring the various facets of phishing, you can better protect your brand and its reputation. Implementing robust prevention strategies will safeguard your business from these growing threats, ensuring a stronger defense against potential attacks.
What is a Phishing Attack?
A phishing scam occurs when a hacker pretends to be someone the victim trusts, such as an authority figure or a representative of a well-known brand. The hacker sends a malicious message designed to trick the victim into paying a fake invoice, opening a fraudulent website link, or following specific instructions. This is how individuals unknowingly fall into the scammer’s trap.
The email attachment might install malware on the victim’s device, which can be used for ransomware or to steal sensitive information such as credit card details, login credentials, or other private data.
A Forbes survey reported over 500 million phishing attacks in 2022, double the number from 2021. Identity theft and credential theft are common targets of scammers. Examples of phishing attacks in the United States serve as a case study to highlight the severity of the threat.
- Nevada, a US state, is the most affected by phishing attacks, while Kansas is rather safe from this cyber attack.
- Arkansas encountered the largest financial trap for phishing. It reported over $80,000 financial losses per 100,000 local people.
- Another Delaware, a significant US state, witnessed the surge in the number of phishing attacks. Reports reveal a sharp rise of 71% since 2018.
- Another US state, Wisconsin measured the massive increase in phishing scams since 2018. The victim’s rate increased by 38%.
- Columbia reported the significant number of phishing victims in the country. It is alarming with 25 phishing victims per 100,000 residents.
Examples of Phishing Attacks
- Email spoofing is a phishing example where spoofed mail ostensibly from any web link is mass-distributed to multiple faculty members at once.
- Another way can be in the form of an email to inform a user that the passcode is near to expiration. Details are provided to go to a password renewal link to renew the passcode within a day.
- The victim lands on a fake page appearing exactly similar to the real page. It appears as a page where both old and new passwords are requested. The scammer keeping a hawk’s eye on it hijacks the original password and obtains access to sensitive areas by compromising the network security.
- When the actual password renewal page is sent to the user, it is being redirected. Resultantly, a fraudulent script unknowingly becomes active in the background to steal the user’s session cookie. It gives the attacker privileged authority to the data breach.
What are the Common Types of Phishing Attack?
Digital scammers use apparent original paths to throw dust in the victim’s eyes. Being the popularly employed scam, phishing attacks can be categorized into several types that need special attention for effective solutions. This section helps you understand phishing scams in detail.
- Spear Attack: The scammer attacks a specific company or a person, often using private information and identity theft to make the scam more original.
- Email Phishing: It is the most liked and conventional method of cybercriminals, where they send fraudulent emails that appear to be from genuine and reputable companies.
- Vishing Scam: It is voice phishing, where cyber attackers use fake phone calls to trick individuals into providing sensitive and targeted information.
- Smishing: This is SMS phishing, which involves sending malicious text messages to recipients to deceive them. It enables attackers to steal sensitive data for nasty gains.
- Whaling: It is a type of spear phishing attack aimed at high-profile individuals. It specifically includes top decision-makers or executives.
A Bloomberg report reveals that crypto fraud surged by 45% last year, reaching $5.6 billion, with phishing attacks playing a significant role in these financial scams. The lack of multi-layered protection and proper information security creates vulnerabilities that attackers can easily exploit.
Understanding common phishing methods is essential for organizations to prevent fraud and protect sensitive data. Implementing stronger security measures can help control these fraudulent activities and reduce the risk of data breaches.
Why Phishing a Crucial Cyber Threat?
Phishing is highly popular among cybercriminals as it is quite effective. According to the IBM phishing attacks report out of the total cost of data breach activities, phishing accounts for 16% of all the breaches. These breaches cost organizations an average of $4.76 million. If you also want to know why a phishing scam is a significant cyber risk, this section is for you. Take a quick view of the reasons that are ready to alert you.
- Phishing attacks deadly exploit people rather than raging technological challenges, posing significant threats.
- Scammers don’t need to outsmart cybersecurity tools to breach systems, they can simply trick people to obtain authorized access to the target. Be it money or sensitive information.
- Phishers can appear as lone scammers or in the form of sophisticated criminal gangs and can be used for various malicious ends, such as credit card fraud, extortion, account hijacking and more.
- Its scope is diverse from targeting everyday individuals to large corporations. One of the most popular phishing attacks is Russian hackers employing a fake passcode-reset email to steal countless emails from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 US presidential election campaign.
- Phishing attacks are widely employed on human beings to manipulate them. Standard network monitoring strategies and tools are not enough to trace the attempt in progress.
Common Red Flag Signs of Phishing
Every phishing scam is different from the other one, and so are the details. Before exploring protective measures, it is mandatory to discover some common warning signs enough to indicate there might be a phishing attempt. Let’s look into these signs one by one.
1. Emotional and Pressure Tactics
Phishing attackers develop a sense of urgency to confuse the victims. Scammers invoke their emotions such as greed, and curiosity. They might threaten users by imposing a time limit and frightening them with unrealistic results.
2. Wrong Grammar and Spelling
These internationally operating phishing scammers deliberately write messages in slang language, neither fluent nor easily understandable. Thus, the phishing attempts contain misspelled, grammatically errored, and inconsistent content to trap the users.
3. Request for Sensitive Info
Phishing attackers normally ask for vulnerable data or money. Illegal or unexpected payment requests or private information are common alerts of phishing attacks. Criminals can easily disguise their financial requests in the form of fines, fees, or invoices. It is their common method of stealing sensitive information such as login credentials.
4. Fictitious URLs and IDs
Scammers often leverage forged and bogus URLs and email addresses that look legitimate at first sight. Another tactic is using a fraudulent URL by using link-shortening services as a hoax to hide malicious URLs.
5. Fake Promotional Messages
Under the guise of a legitimate brand, scammers often send messages that contain specific details. They might address the customers by name, or specific order numbers. Getting a vague message with no particular details is a serious red flag.
6. Other Danger Signs
Hackers might use malicious files to trick victims by using textual images instead of real script in messages and website pages to steer clear of spam filters. IBM X-Force found that criminals commonly misuse the Ukrainian conflict to stir targets’ emotions.
How to prevent phishing attacks?
There are multiple phishing attack protection strategies for network security and other devices’ safety from cyber criminals. Keep your organizations secure from phishing attacks by leveraging the potential methods of phishing prevention.
1) Install Anti-phishing Software
The anti-malware and anti-phishing software software use machine learning algorithms to identify phishing attacks. They detect and neutralize the codes or links carried by phishing content.
2) Ensure SSL Certificate
Prefer to land on SSL-certified websites because they are legitimate with a specific stamp of authority. It can significantly prevent phishing attacks.
3) Multi-factor Authentication
The MFA method provides an extra layer of security and stops hackers from taking over user private accounts. Scammers can only easily steal passwords, not the fingerprint scan or one-time password. Thanks to multifactor authentication.
4) End-point Security Tools
Different end-point tools including EDR and other tools employ AI and analytics to intercept phishing attacks. This way, IT devices and mobile security can be promised.
5) Enterprise Security Solutions
With the effective use of cybersecurity asset management strategy and AI tools, it is easy to identify and stop anomalous activities.
6) Visitor Management System
Ensure an effective visitor management system for organizations. It is designed to streamline and monitor the visitors to reduce the security risks.
What to Do Next?
Phishing attacks remain the most prevalent security alert today. Understanding how these attacks work can turn down the risk level. Stay on alert for fictitious messages asking for your personal details. Staying sharp-eyed is important to protect against these scams. If you still fail to secure your data, prefer to lean on a professional cybersecurity service provider for secure digital activities.
