What is a phishing attack? Phishing is a cyber attack that uses an institution’s identity to frighten users and make them follow a specific action.
Phishing is a cyber attack by attackers pretending to be a trusted person or institution. Phishing messages focus on manipulating users. The exploited user is allowed to complete a particular action.
Phishing is one of the most common cyber attacks. It is a kind of social engineering and a threat that can be encountered at almost any point. Phishing attacks are followed by applications such as malware infection and code injection.
What is a phishing attack?
In a phishing attack‘s basic structure, messages are transmitted to users by various methods. Attackers use social media and big data to gather information about their victims. Thus, personalized messages can be delivered to the user.
Since the sent message is personalized, the user believes it came from a secure source. However, emails or messages contain malware and links to malicious sites. The attack succeeds when the user interacts with one of them.
The primary purpose of the attacker is usually to gain access to the person’s information, such as bank accounts. For this, fake sites are created, and users are expected to enter their information. Then, all the information is quickly transmitted to the attacker.
One of the easiest ways to spot phishing messages is to pay attention to typos. You need to see if the texts are professionally written. However, you should not forget that the person who will attack will use professional marketing techniques.
How to spot phishing attacks?
Phishing attacks usually create a sense of urgency. They make the user believe bad results will occur if they do not intervene immediately. Since the user does not read the incoming message in detail, he falls into the trap.
- Message style: Phishing messages do not contain extreme professionalism. They have an inappropriate tone. You must be suspicious of anything that looks like an ordinary message when you read it.
- Language mistakes: Typo is very common in phishing messages. Almost all phishing emails contain such errors. You should watch out for typos.
- Strange requests: You should be suspicious if the email mentions strange requests. No bank or official institution will ask you to enter your user information via email.
- Inconsistencies: Incoming links in phishing emails do not match. For example, for an email from support@example-bank.com, links like exampleb.com can be used.
Most phishing attacks have these traces. You should not open attachments or click on links in suspicious emails. Most importantly, you should not share your sensitive information with anyone.
Most popular 5 types of phishing attacks
Phishing attacks are social engineering efforts. For this reason, they are not uniform. Different types are carried out via email, SMS, phone call, and social media. The target is always your personal data.
Whaling
Whaling attacks are a privileged attack type. It targets senior administrators or favored individuals, not regular users. Whaling attacks advance his technique very precisely, even if the aim is the same as for other attacks.
Collecting information about senior executives and privileged people on the internet is very easy. However, the whaling method does not embed links or attachments in emails. Personalized messages are created, and more information is obtained about the victim.
Angler phishing
Angler phishing uses fake accounts from well-known organizations. Fake accounts appear on social media. Also, they are just like the account of the official organization. They have the same profile photo, the same writing style, and the same behavior. Thus, the user is deceived.
For example, if the official Twitter account “Example Bank Customer Service” is @examplebankcs, the attacker impersonates @examplebankc. The user thinks that they are communicating with the actual brand. Shares account information with attackers.
Email phishing
The majority of phishing attacks are done via email. Attackers try to imitate real organizations. For this, they register the domain name and send target requests. In fact, everything is an imitation.
In fake domain registration, they add a letter or use a subdomain.
For example, if the “Example Bank” organization’s domain is examplebank.com, attackers could send emails through example-bank.com. The careless user falls victim to this prey.
Voice phishing
Voice phishing refers to attacks that use telephone communication instead of classical email communication. Voice phishing is for phone conversations. The attacker tries to commit fraud by impersonating a bank. In general, it reports that there is a problem with their account.
When the victim believes that the incoming call came from the bank, he intends to provide more information about the account information. It offers all the necessary information in the security steps to verify their identity. Then, the attacker can access the person’s account.
Spear phishing
Spear phishing is malicious emails sent to specific individuals. The attackers already have some information about the users. For example, they may have information such as name, place of work, title, email address, and trusted people around.
By placing all this information in emails, they gain extra trust. For spear phishing to work, the victim must perform certain activities, such as transferring money. Unlike other phishing methods, manipulation is more intense.
To be protected from phishing attacks, it is necessary to have knowledge about cyber attacks. You should get some cybersecurity training, even at a basic level. You should not interact with any suspicious-looking message, email, or call.
