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Phishing attacks with social engineering tactics, so the first line of defense is ensuring that employees have the training necessary to protect information.
FREMONT, CA: Phishing attacks have been prevalent since the internet's initial days. At its core, phishing is a kind of cyberattack that utilizes social engineering techniques to persuade people to take action that is not in their best interests. Cybercriminals use more advanced strategies than modern attacks, which use comparable social engineering methods.
Even though social engineering strategies are the foundation of phishing attacks, some emerging methods can be complex for consumers to identify. Phishing threats can be reduced by taking numerous actions to prevent malicious entities from successfully entering systems, networks, and software.
Companies in highly targeted areas, such as financial services and healthcare, frequently hire firms to monitor and eliminate faked versions of their websites as they are more vulnerable to phishing attacks. This effectively prevents the staff and customers from clicking on fraudulent links and revealing their login credentials to the fraudsters.
Organizations can better safeguard their users and data if they know the various forms of phishing attacks.
HTTPS phishing
The hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) is typically regarded as a "safe" link to click as it utilizes encryption to strengthen security. As HTTPS promotes legitimacy, most reputable organizations now implement it instead of HTTP. But now, cybercriminals have started including HTTPS URLs in the scam emails to continue their phishing attack.
Spear phishing
Even though email is used in a spear-phishing attack, it follows a more targeted approach. Cybercriminals begin by gathering information from relevant or publicly available sources such as social media or an organization's website utilizing open-source intelligence (OSINT). Then, using real names, job functions, or work phone numbers, they select various people inside the organization, making the receiver believe the email is from someone else. Finally, the recipient takes action as suggested in the email since they assume it is an internal request.
Whaling/CEO fraud
Whale phishing, commonly known as whaling or CEO fraud, is another corporate phishing attack that uses OSINT. To know the name of the organization's CEO or other senior leadership member, cybercriminals use social media or the corporate website. They then use a similar email address to impersonate that person. The email can request a money transfer or ask the receiver to examine a document.