Phishing has quickly become the most predominant form of cyberattack due to the method’s simplicity. It solely relies on a user’s gullibility. The weakest link to any business is typically the employees. In order to protect your business, you and your team need to identify these social engineering cyberattack attempts. Let’s look at a few tips on how to recognize a phishing attempt.
Remember those weekend fishing trips you spent as a kid, staring endlessly unsure which bait to use? The goal was for your bait to look as real as possible, ensuring you wouldn’t leave without a bite. Phishing has been appropriately named due to the similarities. Unfortunately for most businesses, your employees are the fish’s replacement and that wall-mounted trophy fish becomes an unaffordable amount of data loss.
Posing as a fraudulent website or persona with the intentions to steal data or access credentials yields a high reward for cybercriminals. Trial and error has revolutionized phishing into a much more effective means of theft. There are numerous different kinds of attacks, which can be split into two categories. The first category is general phishing. This makes use of an email that is written to apply to as many people as possible. The sheer volume of emails sent, typically rewards a cybercriminal with at least a few hits. The second is commonly known as spear phishing. This method of phishing is a much more personalized cyberattack. Cybercriminals typically do an uncomfortable amount of research to increase their odds of fooling a specific target. This method has proven to be extremely effective, especially since these messages typically appear to have been sent from an authoritative figure.
What reward does this yield? Phishing attacks can be used to steal credentials, infect a workstation or network with malware, or just fool a business user into making false orders with business funds.
There are many different baits cybercriminals are using. Most of them fall within the same outline, so learning what to look for applies to most cyberattack attempts.
Phishing is extremely consequential. EpiOn has experts who can assist your business with learning to identify phishing attempts. Call (931) 526-3742 to speak to one today!