What is phishing?
Phishing is the practise of delivering fake messages that appear to come from a trusted source. It is normally done by email. The intent is to either install malware on the victim's computer or steal personal information like credit card numbers and login credentials. Everyone should be aware of phishing in order to be secure because it is a common form of cyberattack.
The link may direct the victim to a website that looks identical to the legitimate one, but is actually controlled by the attacker. Once the victim enters their information, the attacker can steal it and use it for their own purposes, such as accessing the victim's bank account or stealing their identity.
The oldest scam in a cybercriminal's toolkit, phishing may still be incredibly successful at deceiving unsuspecting victims. The bulk of assaults that can be linked to phishing are really the result of human mistake, despite the fact that security professionals are continuously under pressure to fight against phishing attempts. Untrained staff are vulnerable to clicking on dangerous email links, being taken advantage of by malicious redirects, or being duped by a very identical website operated by hackers.
Example: Creating a Fake Email Address The attacker will create a fake email address that looks similar to a legitimate one, such as by changing a single letter or adding a small variation. For example, if the legitimate email address is "example@gmail.com", the attacker might create a fake email address like "exampIe@gmail.com" (with a capital "i" instead of an "L").
Report/ proofpoint of this phishing attack
In 2019, 65% of US organisations were victims of successful phishing attacks, according to Proofpoint's 2020 State of the Phish report. This illustrates the complexity of attackers and the necessity of security awareness training that is just as sophisticated. It becomes more challenging to teach consumers to recognise suspicious messages when you take into account that not all phishing schemes operate in the same manner. Some are generic email blasts, while others are well constructed to target a particular demographic.
How does phishing works?
Phishing begins with a phoney email or other contact meant to entice a victim. The communication is designed to appear to have originated from a trusted sender. If the victim is duped, he or she is coerced into disclosing private information, usually on a fake website. Malware may potentially be downloaded into the target's PC.
In order to increase the possibility that users may click the malicious link unintentionally, hackers utilise link spoofing to make malicious URLs look to be authentic. Trained or knowledgeable users who are used to using a check-before-click routine can quickly spot some of these altered URLs. The effectiveness of human-initiated visual examination and detection is nevertheless diminished by homograph assaults, which prey on similarly-looking characters.
Some of common ways that phishing attacks occur:
Email phishing, Spear phishing, Smishing, Vishing, Malware-based phishing, and Whaling
Email phishing
An email phishing attack is a method of phishing in which attackers sends customised emails that seems to have originated from a trusted source and instruct them to do a certain action. Sensitive data loss, malware downloads, or even financial loss may arise.
Phishing is the activity of fooling victims by pretending to be a trustworthy organisation and taking benefit of their weak points to get private information. Private data like usernames and passwords or even crucial data
that aid in obtaining access to the organisation that the target is working. Phishing can be executed through text messages, phone calls, emails, or even by influencing search engine results.
In the middle of the 1990s, hackers scammed AOL customers into revealing their login information, which was the first reported email phishing attempt. Phishing is a play on the words "fishing for information" and "phone-based phishing attacks," which were used to deceive telecom companies into providing free phone calls. Phishing attacks are one of the simplest yet most harmful kinds of attacks via the internet, thanks to the development of technology and the global migration of the majority of people online.
The goal of phishing attack:
- Stealing the sensitive data.
- Infect the intended system.
Real-world examples of phishing email attacks:
- $100 million from IT companies were stolen.
- In 2014 the celebrity nude images were leaked.
Ways to identify a phishing email:
- Email structure and content
It is advisable to confirm everything asked for you in an urgent email with the relevant department or other parties concerned. For instance, if someone receives an email regarding their online accounts being hijacked, they can all the bank to find out whether this is real. It’s crucial to remember that the majority of large organizations don’t request sensitive information, especially over email. - The sender and email ID
The name of the organisation is often present in every legitimate email address. An email from "Jennifer@hotmail.com" claiming to be from PayPal, for instance, is most likely a fraud. An employee of PayPal often has an email address that looks like "jennifer@paypal.com." Additionally, phishers attempt to mimic, if not exactly duplicate, legitimate email addresses in the sender's email address. They may attempt to use "jennifer@paypal12.com" in this Paypal example. To deceive victims, they may also use symbols or characters that seem close to alphabets as a replacement. Using the domain "paypaI" with a capital "I" rather than a lowercase "L," for instance.
Check for typos and spelling errors
Spelling mistakes, typos, or poor wording are frequent features of phishing emails. An email can be a hoax if it has several spelling or punctuation errors.
Additionally, there are no grammatical or spelling problems in business communications. Some of these mistakes may have been made by non-native English speakers who were the hackers.
Additionally, spam emails could not communicate in the same way as genuine emails from the company they seem to be from. For instance, a shift in the tone of an email from a supplier who has done business with the target for a long time can be easily detected.
Attachments
The majority of hacker email attachments include the extensions.exe,.zip, or.src. It is advised to stay away from these extensions since they have a high chance of installing malware on the target's device.
Attackers may utilise picture files with embedded code or connections to malicious websites (such as.jpg or.png files).
Links in PDF documents that point to malicious websites or that take use of flaws in the PDF reader software used by the victim are both possible.
These are often Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files from Microsoft Office that include macros or other scripts that can run code on the victim's computer when the file is accessed.
URL and hyperlinks
Make sure there are no strange characters or misspellings in the link's URL. Scammers frequently build URLs that resemble real ones but have minute variations that are hard to spot at first sight.
Make sure that how your URL begins either with "https" or with "http". The secure prefix "https" denotes that the website employs encryption to safeguard your data, and the "s" in "https" stands for that. It might not be a secure website if the URL begins with "https".
Verify the URL's domain name. It can be a bogus website if the domain name is different from what you would anticipate or does not seem familiar.
Most Expensive Thing to buy, PRIVACY
