The favourite move of cybercriminals is phishing attacks. According to the report presented by RSA in the first quarter of 2020, there is a huge increase in phishing emails including the COVID-19 title. Cybercriminals attempting to take advantage of both company employees and people and can be said that they are successful in many cases.
If no action is taken against these phishing attacks, they could lead to major cybersecurity incidents. Because, considering the success rate, these attacks can affect all companies and organizations around the world. There are many ways to protect yourself from phishing attacks. It is one of the best ways to increase the awareness of end-users against these attacks with cybersecurity awareness training. This can help organizations stay secure and protected.
What are Phishing Attacks?
Cybercriminals use “Phishing” as a social engineering attack that steals user data, credit card details, login details and other sensitive information. Phishing attacks are carried out if attackers disguise themselves as reliable parties, in order to duplicate an instant message, email or text message.
For instance, a worker can receive phishing emails from impostors who pose in their organization as an executive. When an employee follows the instructions from the email, phishers can access the company’s data illegally. This is particularly easy when an employee provides his or her login information. After an employee has tried to enter their registration and password, cybercriminals can then control the systems of the company. Phishers may also pose that the company does not hold accounts like a bank or other financial institution. In that case, an employee who falls for a scam sends money directly to the scammers.
What are the five most common types of phishing?
Whaling
Whaling attacks are also more aggressive, threatening senior executives. Although whaling’s end goal is the same as every phishing attack, the strategy is much subtler.
In this instance tricks, such as fake links and malicious URLs, are not helpful, because criminals try to copy while through.
Fake tax making schemes are a popular variation of whales. Tax types are highly regarded by offenders as they contain a variety of valuable information such as identities, addresses, social security numbers and bank account records.
What is Spear-Phishing and How does it work?
Spear-phishing may sound simple, but spear-phishing emails have improved over the last few years and are now extremely difficult to detect without prior knowledge of spear phishing protection. Spear-phishing attackers target victims who put their personal information on the Internet. They may view individual profiles while scanning the social media platforms. From a profile, they will be able to find a personal email address, a list of friends, a geographic location, and any new gadget posts that have recently been purchased. With all this information, the attacker would be able to act as a friend or a familiar entity and send a strong but fraudulent message to their target.
Email Phishing
This strategy is based on a game of numbers. The phisher sends thousands of misleading generic requests in order to steal login or personal data from the person. These emails have a feeling of panic or affect the target to do whatever the attacker desires.
The success of this type of phishing heavily relies on how a malicious attacker can make the email look like an official correspondence. For this reason, experts advise that you always check the authenticity of the URL before clicking on it.
Smishing and Vishing
Smishing is also known as SMS phishing is a popular form of phishing attack that is carried out via SMS on mobile phones.
The Smishing message contains a threat or an invitation to call a phone, to exchange confidential data at a certain time or to click on a link. They can also give you links to various security applications and recommend that you download it, which turns out to be quite a ransomware.
A standard crushing message can say that your bank card has been terminated. You will be presented with links like https://h24gy5sh3 then by clicking on that link to access the account; the malware will be installed on the device. Likewise, vishing involves the attacker calling you via phone, claiming similar issues.
Angler Phishing
As a comparatively recent attack tool, social media provides a variety of ways for perpetrators to manipulate people. Fake URLs; cloned blogs, posts, and tweets; and instant messaging (which is practically the same as smishing) can also be used to force users to share personal information or download malware.
Is a cybersecurity career desirable?
The growing need for cyber-security experts comes as no surprise. Considering the analysis, it reveals that up to 100,000 security experts will be expected by 2022.
However, because of strong demand, there is a significant skill shortage in cybersecurity expertise among Worldwide. Trained cybersecurity experts are required to ensure phishing and email protection.
Get trained with best cybersecurity awareness program
Keepnet Labs’ cybersecurity awareness training library has more than 200 training topics. We offer these courses in 8 different languages with different tools and methods such as gaming, video, micro-video, HTML5 and many other resources. We also offer a free cybersecurity awareness training, therefore it is not difficult to see and track the threats in the cyber world.
This blog had been published at www.keepnetlabs.com.
