Some of those who were least likely to receive a message would most commonly engage with them. A higher proportion of adults responded to or clicked a link in a phishing message if they; were social renters (7% compared with 3% of homeowners)
Over 48% of emails sent in 2022 were spam. Over a fifth of phishing emails originate from Russia. Millennials and Gen-Z internet users are most likely to fall victim to phishing attacks. 83% of UK businesses that suffered a cyber attack in 2022 reported the attack type as phishing.
Often phishers are targeting an enterprise and a selected group at an office (staff, management, executives) that is responsible for a project or service.
1. Email phishing. Most phishing attacks are sent by email. The crook will register a fake domain that mimics a genuine organisation and sends thousands of generic requests.
For individuals, this includes unauthorized purchases, the stealing of funds, or identify theft. Moreover, phishing is often used to gain a foothold in corporate or governmental networks as a part of a larger attack, such as an advanced persistent threat (APT) event.
Spear phishing emails are targeted at specific companies or groups of people. They are customised with the target audience in mind to be highly believable and likely to get the victims to click on the links provided in the email.
The attack starts with grabbing a ton of email addresses, all by inputting your domain. Sending Phishing emails to these email addresses is essentially free. The attacker then sits back (again sips on that energy drink - like the movies, of course) and waits until someone clicks on one of those Phishing emails.
Not surprising given how a successful phishing attack can paralyze your organization. Your people won't be able to continue their work. Plus your data and assets could be stolen or damaged. And your customers can't use your online services.
Phishing emails are carefully designed by scammers and criminals to manipulate our emotions and tap into our unconscious biases, so humans are practically hardwired to fall for them, says cybersecurity expert and computer scientist Daniela Oliveira, an associate professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Phishing emails are generally not targeted to specific individuals but rather sent out to large groups of people.
It includes suspicious attachments or links
This will either be an infected attachment you're asked to download or a link to a bogus website. The purpose of these payloads is to capture sensitive information, such as login credentials, credit card details, phone numbers and account numbers.
Scammers use email or text messages to try to steal your passwords, account numbers, or Social Security numbers. If they get that information, they could get access to your email, bank, or other accounts. Or they could sell your information to other scammers.
What Type of Social Engineering Targets Particular Individuals or Groups? Of the three basic types of social engineering, phishing targets particular individuals and groups. Although cybercriminals can use email, text, or phone calls to deploy these attacks, some types of phishing are more specific than others.
Spear-phishing attackers target victims who put personal information on the internet. They might view individual profiles while scanning a social networking site.
Phishing email statistics suggest that nearly 1.2% of all emails sent are malicious, which in numbers translated to 3.4 billion phishing emails daily. For every 4,200 emails sent, 1 would most definitely be a phishing scam email.
Phishing works by sending messages that look like they are from a legitimate company or website. Phishing messages will usually contain a link that takes the user to a fake website that looks like the real thing. The user is then asked to enter personal information, such as their credit card number.
Suspicious messages, emails and social posts containing shortened links. Web pages that ask for login credentials. Suspicious emails with uncharacteristic language. Web pages with suspicious or copycat URLs.
Sadly, there are many ways scammers and hackers can source their victims' email addresses, including buying them from data providers or the dark web, email harvesting, social engineering, fake websites or social media.
What is a common indicator of a phishing attack? Requests for personal information, generic greetings or lack of greetings, misspellings, unofficial "from" email addresses, unfamiliar webpages, and misleading hyperlinks are the most common indicators of a phishing attack.
Deceptive phishing is the most common type of phishing scam. In this ploy, fraudsters impersonate a legitimate company to steal people's personal data or login credentials. Those emails use threats and a sense of urgency to scare users into doing what the attackers want.