Phishing vs spear phishing vs whaling attacks

[harlan4096]

Gone are the days when phishing emails were typo-laden messages demanding you to click on a link and enter your credit card details into some eyesore of a website. Today’s phishing attacks are advanced, sophisticated and scarily believable, which perhaps explains why 22 percent of employees clicked on a phishing email in 2018, according to figures from Verizon.

How are phishing attacks getting more sophisticated? Well, rather than casting out a wide net in the hopes of snagging a couple of fish, cybercriminals are becoming increasingly selective with their attacks. By focusing their efforts on a single high-value target, cybercriminals are able to create personalized attacks that are painstakingly tailored to the individual, thereby maximizing their chances of landing a whopper.

Read on to learn more about the different types of phishing attacks and how you can protect yourself as a small business owner.

How phishing works

Phishing is the general term for a type of social engineering attack in which attackers pretend to be a legitimate entity in order to extract sensitive information from a target. Much like a fisherman casting an enormous net into the sea in the hopes of catching something, most common phishing attacks have an incredibly wide attack scope, and will often be distributed to thousands or millions of people.
In this sense, a phishing attack is very much a numbers game. An attacker understands there’s a low chance of a target taking the bait, but because the scope of the attack is so large there’s a good chance that at least some people will respond. Phishing attacks are most commonly delivered over email, but they can also be sent via social media, phone calls and SMS.

Full reading: https://blog.emsisoft.com/en/32736/phish...cker190219