Phishing

What Is Phishing?

Phishing, akin to "fishing," is a form of social engineering. In this cyber attack, a malicious actor masquerades as a reputable sender, dispatching deceptive messages to unsuspecting victims and laying "bait" to entice them into clicking on malicious links or disclosing sensitive information on counterfeit websites. Employing the acquired information, the malicious actor can pursue economic benefits by either directly exploiting the victim's personal data or initiating subsequent cyber-attacks. Moreover, the malicious actor might append malware to phishing endeavors. Once the victim opens the attachment, the malware infiltrates and operates on the victim's system. Furthermore, the malicious actor may deceive the victim into erroneously transferring funds or assets to third parties.

How Phishing Can Succeed

Phishing attackers frequently craft deceptive information to exploit human tendencies. Such content often exploits a victim's fear or curiosity or induces urgency by stressing time constraints. Consequently, victims may hastily engage in actions without critically assessing the authenticity of the information. Common phishing tactics involve warning users about account vulnerabilities or falsely claiming they've won substantial prizes. Additionally, attackers may fabricate phishing content based on ongoing events, particularly social occurrences with widespread impact, affecting numerous groups, and evoking empathy among people.

Phishing enjoys a degree of success due to its adept use of psychological manipulation to manipulate people's emotions and subsequently influence their behavior. It's impractical to list all existing phishing "baits." However, comprehending phishing tactics and enhancing cybersecurity awareness can effectively mitigate phishing risks.

Common Types of Phishing

Email Phishing

Email phishing stands out as the predominant form of phishing. Attackers leverage emails to disseminate phishing information due to the widespread usage of email platforms. Moreover, many phishing techniques, such as link manipulation, are commonly found in emails. Additionally, enterprises typically rely on emails for internal communication. Given that phishing often serves as the initial stage of infiltrating enterprise systems, email phishing has emerged as the preferred method for many attackers.

Phishing emails commonly exhibit certain characteristics. For instance, they frequently instigate a sense of urgency by including phrases like "please handle this as soon as possible" or "it's urgent," compelling victims to divulge personal information hastily out of panic. Moreover, phishing emails often feature syntax and spelling errors, a departure from the polished communications typically sent by legitimate organizations.

Email phishing manifests in numerous forms. Below are several prevalent techniques employed in email phishing campaigns.

Spear Phishing

While common email phishing involves casting a wide net without specific details on victims, spear phishing is a more targeted approach. Attackers conducting spear phishing meticulously investigate a victim's characteristics, position, and contacts through social engineering. This thorough research allows spear phishers to craft highly personalized and convincing phishing emails, significantly increasing their success rate. Spear phishing often serves as the initial breach in an enterprise's security defenses.

Here's a typical scenario: An employee in the Human Resources department of a company receives an email purportedly from a job applicant. The email includes an attachment disguised as a resume but is actually an executable Trojan horse. The victim, accustomed to receiving resumes from applicants, downloads the attachment, unwittingly falling into the attacker's trap.

Whaling

Whaling, as the name implies, entails targeting the "big fish" within a company, specifically its top executives. This specialized form of spear phishing garners significant attention because top executives typically possess access to vast amounts of sensitive company data. Successful whaling attacks can inflict substantial losses on a company.

BEC

Strictly speaking, the Business Email Compromise (BEC) technique constitutes a subset of spear phishing and often follows whaling in a cyber attack sequence. In a BEC scam, the attacker masquerades as a decision-maker within a company and dispatches instructions about financial transactions and interests to other departments or individuals via email. Unlike traditional phishing, such attacks do not focus on obtaining victims' personal information or prompting them to download malicious software or click on malicious links. Instead, they aim to directly pilfer funds, such as by instructing a company's finance department to initiate a transfer to a partner or customer. Despite being less technically sophisticated than other phishing techniques, BEC attacks can still result in substantial financial losses for companies.

For instance, a member of a company's finance department receives a seemingly private email from the company's CEO, instructing them to initiate a significant remittance, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, to a third-party partner. The email emphasizes confidentiality. Trusting in the authenticity of the CEO's communication, the victim proceeds to execute the transfer, unwittingly succumbing to the attacker's scheme.

Vishing and Smishing

Vishing and smishing are types of phishing attacks conducted over phone calls or SMS messages. These techniques target elderly victims who may not be familiar with the internet and are unaware of attackers' sophisticated tactics. Consequently, they are less vulnerable to more technologically advanced attacks. For this demographic, attackers resort to traditional methods, namely phone calls or text messages. Many attackers employ automated robots to carry out the deception, as advanced robots can closely mimic human behavior, greatly enhancing attackers' efficiency.

Social Media Phishing

Social media has seamlessly integrated into our daily lives, serving as a platform for sharing personal information and facilitating online transactions by linking bank accounts and credit cards to our profiles. Unfortunately, this convenience also presents opportunities for criminals to launch phishing attacks. Social media phishing encompasses various tactics, including spreading phishing attacks through social media channels, planning attacks by gathering victims' information from social media, and hacking into victims' social media accounts.

For instance, consider a scenario where an attacker gains unauthorized access to a victim's social media account. The attacker then exploits this access by sending a QR code or link from the compromised account to the victim's relatives and friends. Since recipients are less likely to suspect their friend's account, they are more susceptible to falling victim to the phishing attempt themselves.

Pharming

Pharming represents a sophisticated and potent variant of phishing. It can be executed by altering the host file on a victim's computer or by exploiting vulnerabilities in DNS server software. A pharming attacker possesses the capability to reroute victims to phishing or malicious websites once they input a website address. Unlike common phishing attacks, where success often hinges on victim carelessness or lack of security awareness, pharming attacks pose a more formidable challenge. Even if a victim correctly enters a website's address, the compromised DNS server will redirect them to a malicious website.

Evil Twin Attack

Numerous individuals have encountered the scenario of connecting to free Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas. However, these seemingly convenient hotspots may actually be forged by hackers executing evil twin attacks. In such attacks, a hacker fabricates a counterfeit Wi-Fi access point in a public setting, effectively creating an "evil twin" of the genuine Wi-Fi access point. This deception lures unsuspecting victims into connecting to the fake hotspot. Subsequently, once victims' devices establish an internet connection through the fraudulent access point, the hacker can illicitly pilfer account passwords and personal information from the victims.

How to Prevent Phishing

The foremost measure to prevent phishing is fostering cyber security awareness and cultivating sound network usage habits. By disseminating cyber security knowledge, individuals become more cognizant of the severe repercussions of phishing and gain insight into commonly employed phishing techniques. Consequently, they are inclined to establish more robust passwords to safeguard their accounts and remain vigilant when interacting with emails, SMS messages, and voicemails.

Employing real-life examples enhances awareness and underscores the fact that everyone is susceptible to falling victim to phishing attacks. To empower individuals to effectively counter phishing attempts, utilizing tools and websites for simulating phishing attacks can be beneficial.

Enterprises must prioritize bolstering their cyber security infrastructure by implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance application account security. Additionally, maintaining up-to-date software and systems, along with conducting regular system scans to identify potential security threats, are crucial steps in safeguarding against cyber attacks.