Learn About Phishing Attack Along With Examples | Complete Security Software

How Does Phishing Work?

Phishing begins with an email or other communication intended to deceive a victim. The message appears to come from someone you trust. If the victim falls into the trap, they are asked to provide confidential information, often on a fraudulent website. Sometimes malware is also downloaded to the target's computer.

What is the Best Security Technology?

No single cybersecurity technology can prevent phishing attacks.

What Are the Dangers of Phishing Attacks?

Sometimes hackers just collect a victim's bank information or other personal data for financial gain. However, the goal may be to obtain login credentials or other information that will be used for subsequent advanced attacks against a business. Cyberattacks, such as advanced persistent threats (APT) and ransomware, often start with phishing.

How to educate users about phishing attacks?

Educating users is one way to protect your organizations from phishing. Education should involve all employees. High-level executives are often a target. Teach them to recognize a phishing email and what to do when they receive one. Simulation exercises are also essential for gauging your employees' reactions to a phased phishing attack.

Examples of Phishing Attacks

Spear Phishing

Spear phishing targets specific people. Hackers often search for their victims on social media and other sites. Thus, they can personalize their communications to make them appear more authentic. Spear phishing is often the first step used to penetrate a company's defenses and carry out a targeted attack. According to the SANS Institute, 95% of attacks launched on corporate networks are the result of successful spear phishing.

Whaling

When hackers prey on a "big fish" like a CEO, it's called whaling (literally "whaling"). These hackers often spend a lot of time profiling their target to find the best time and means to steal their login credentials. Whaling is particularly dangerous because managers have access to a lot of information about the company.

Pharming

Like phishing, pharming directs users to a fraudulent website that appears legitimate. However, in this case, the victims don't even need to click on a malicious link to be redirected to the bogus site. Hackers can infect the user's computer or the website's DNS server, and redirect the user to a bogus site, even if the user enters the correct URL.

Deceptive Phishing

Deceptive Phishing is the most common type of phishing. In this case, a hacker tries to obtain confidential information from the victims. He uses this information to steal money or launch other attacks. A good example is an email appearing to be from your bank asking you to click on a link and confirm your account information.

How to Protect Yourself From Phishing?

Educating your users and teaching them to recognize the signs that a message is suspicious will significantly reduce the number of compromised computers. As user behavior is not predictable, however, it is usually crucial to choose a security solution that can detect phishing operations. The best recommendation is to complete security software.

Some email gateway solutions that analyze reputation can intercept and classify phishing messages based on the known bad reputation of embedded URLs. However, these solutions are often unable to detect more sophisticated phishing messages, which use the URLs of genuine but compromised websites whose bad reputation is not yet known when the message arrives.

Instead, opt for a system that can identify questionable emails from anomalies, checking for unusual patterns in the traffic, then rewriting the built-in URL and ensuring constant monitoring by searching the page for possible exploits. and downloads.