What is Phishing?
Phishing is when a scammer persuades a user to do anything that gives them access to your device, account, or personal information. They can easily infect you with viruses or steal your credit card information by impersonating a person or organisation you trust.
In other words, these social engineering strategies use trust to “bait” you into providing vital information. This might range from a social media login to your full identity using your social security number.
These schemes may encourage you to open an attachment, click on a link, fill out a form, or respond with personal information. That logic requires you to always be on guard, which can be stressful.
Phishing threats can be highly sophisticated and appear in many forms of communication, including phone calls. The threat of phishing is that it can deceive anyone who is not wary of minor things.
How Does Phishing Work?
Phishing scammers can target anyone who utilises the internet or mobile phones.
Phishing attacks typically aim to:
- Infect your gadget with malware.
- Steal your personal credentials to obtain your money or identity.
- Obtain control over your online accounts
- Encourage you to send money or goods willingly
Sometimes, these threats do not stop with a single target. If a hacker acquires access to an email, contacts, or social media accounts, they can send phishing messages to individuals the target knows.
Phishing is deceptive and hazardous because it relies on trust and haste. If the criminal can persuade you to believe them and act before thinking, you are an easy victim.
Targets That Are Prone to Phishing Attacks
Phishing can affect everyone, regardless of age, in both their personal and professional lives.
Everyone, including the elderly and young children, uses the internet. If a scammer discovers your contact information online, they can include it to their phishing target list.
As of now, it is more difficult to hide your phone number, email address, online message IDs, and social networking profiles. So even if you only have one of these, you will likely be targeted. Furthermore, phishing attempts can target a wide range of people.
What Types of Phishing Scams Should a User Be Aware Of?
The first challenge is determining what to expect from phishing. It can be sent in various ways, including phone calls, messages, and even hijacked URLs on genuine websites. Phishing becomes easier to understand if you have witnessed it in action. You have probably previously encountered some frauds and dismissed them as junk.
Regardless of how they are targeted, phishing assaults take several methods to get to you, and most people will experience at least one of these varieties of phishing:
- Phishing emails come in your inbox, frequently with a request to click a link, send money, respond with personal information, or open an attachment. The sender’s email may be crafted to closely resemble a legitimate one and may contain information that appears specific to you.
- Domain spoofing is a prominent technique used by email phishers to impersonate legitimate email addresses. These frauds use a legitimate company’s domain and change it. You may interact with an address and fall victim to the scheme.
- Voice phishing (vishing) scammers phone you and mimic a legitimate person or firm to defraud you. They may redirect you from an automated message and hide your phone number. Vishers will attempt to keep you on the phone and pressure you to take action.
- SMS phishing (smishing), similar to vishing, this method would impersonate a legitimate firm by using urgency in a short text message to deceive you. The message will usually include a link or a phone number that they want you to use. This also puts mobile messaging services at danger.
- Social media phishing occurs when thieves use posts or direct messages to bait you into a trap. Some are obvious, such as free giveaways or suspicious “official” organisation pages with an urgent requirement. Others may imitate your friends or develop a long-term friendship with you before ‘attacking’ to complete the transaction.
- Clone phishing is the practice of duplicating a previously sent message with harmful attachments and links. This shows in emails, but it may also surface in other forms such as false social media accounts and text messages.
What Does a Phishing Email Look Like?
One of the reasons phishing emails are so hostile is that they are designed to appear real. Generally, the following characteristics are common among phishing emails and should raise red flags:
- Attachments or links.
- Spelling errors.
- Poor grammar.
- Unprofessional graphics.
- Unnecessary hurry to verify your email address or other personal details instantly.
- Instead of using your name, use generic pleasantries such as “Dear Customer”.
Hackers frequently rush to launch phishing sites, so some of them will look very different from the genuine organisation. You can use these characteristics to identify a fraudulent email from your inbox.
However, it is not always clear what steps to take when you get a phishing email that has gotten beyond your spam folder.
How can iZOOlogic help my Company or Organisation?
Find out how iZOOlogic can protect your infrastructure from these malicious attacks through our Phishing solutions.
To find out more about how iZOOlogic can help protect your company’s cyber security, schedule a demo.