What is phishing, how to recognize it and how to avoid it
Phishing is a method of trying to collect personal information using deceptive e-mails and websites. Here's what you need to know about this respected, but increasingly sophisticated, form of cyberattack.
What is Phishing
Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target is contacted by a legitimate organization or bank via email, telephone, or text message to obtain sensitive information such as banking, credit/debit card details, and passwords when it is faked. Huh.
The attacker uses fishing email to distribute malicious links or attachments, which can perform a variety of functions, including stealing login credentials or bank account information from victims.
Phishing is now popular with cybercriminals, as it is easier to trick someone by sending malicious links over a phishing email than by trying to breach a computer's defenses.
Phishing
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker, posing as a trusted entity, deceives a victim into opening an email, instant message or text message. The recipient is then prompted to click on a malicious link, which could lead to the installation of malware, freezing the system as part of a ransomware attack, or stealing sensitive information.
How Phishing Works:
Phishing attacks typically rely on social networking techniques applied to email or other electronic communication methods, including social networks, SMS text messages, and other instant messaging modes.
Phishers may use social engineering and other public sources such as social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to collect a victim's personal and work history, interests and activities and background information.
The primary attack of a phishing attack may mention the victim's name, job title and email address as well as the names of their co-workers and their company's employees.
This information can be used to craft a reliable email.
Usually, the victim receives a message that appears to have been sent by a known contact or organization.
The attack is carried out either through a malicious file attachment that contains phishing software, or through a link to a connection to malicious websites.
In either case, installing malware on the victim's device or taking the victim to a malicious website to trick them into filling in their personal and financial information, such as password, account ID or credit card details .
Successful phishing messages, which are usually portrayed as being from a well-known company, are difficult to compare to original messages: phishing emails have corporate logos and data to make the e-mail appear genuine.
In phishing messages, malicious links are also designed to appear as if they come from the original bank or organization.
Common Features of Phishing Emails
Too good to be true – lucrative offers and catchy or attention-grabbing statements are designed to grab people's attention immediately. For example, many people claim that you won the iPhone, the lottery, or any other grand prize. But, do not click on any suspicious email. Remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is phishing!
A sense of urgency – A favorite tactic among cybercriminals is to instigate you to act fast because super deals are only for a limited time. Some of them will even tell you that you only have a few minutes to answer. When you come across these types of emails, it is better to ignore them. Sometimes, they will tell you that your account will be suspended unless you update your personal details immediately. Most of the credible organizations give sufficient time before closing an account and they never ask their customers to update personal details on the internet. When in doubt, go straight to the source instead of clicking a link in an email.
Hyperlinks – A link may not be all it appears to be. Hovering over a link shows you the actual URL where you will be directed to click on it. It could be completely different or it could be a popular website with misspellings, for example www.bankofbadoda.com - the 'r' is actually a 'd', so look carefully.
Attachments – If you see an attachment in an email that you didn't expect or make sense for, open it! They often contain payloads such as ransomware or other viruses. The only file type that is always safe to click on is a .txt file.
Unusual sender – looks like it's from someone you don't know or someone you know, if anything seems out of the ordinary, unexpected, out of character, or just suspicious in general, put it on do not click!
Phishing Types:
Since many organizations are warning their employees against these phishing and banks are also advising their customers not to click on any e-mail link, still new phishing cases are coming up every day.
Some common times of a phishing attack are as follows:
1) Spear Phishing
Spear phishing attacks are directed at specific individuals or companies, typically using information specific to the victim, which is used to make the message appear more legitimate and genuine.
Spear phishing emails may include references to coworkers or officers of the victim's organization, as well as the victim's name, location, or other personal reference.
How To Know Which E-mail Is Fake, Spoofed Or Spam?
2) Whaling Attacks:
Whaling attacks are a type of spear phishing attack specifically targeted at senior executives of an organization, often with the aim of stealing large sums of money.
For this, the messages are detailed information about the victims to make them seem more real. Because using specific or specific information about the target increases the chances of the attack being successful.
In Whaling Attacks attack, they are prompted to pay their employees or vendors but in reality the payment is made to the attackers.
3) Pharming Attacks:
Pharming Attacks are a type of phishing that relies on DNS cache poisoning to redirect users from a legitimate site to a fraudulent website and steal their login credentials when they attempt to log in to this fraud site. .
If you didn't check the safety before clicking the link, you could be in trouble.
4) Voice Phishing Meaning in Hindi:
Voice phishing, also known as vishing, is a form of phishing that occurs over voice communication media including IP (VoIP) or POTS (plain old telephone service).
In this, they call and demand the debit card or credit card information of the people.
5) SMS Phishing:
SMS Phishing uses text messaging to expose victims to bank account credentials or to install malware.
How to identify a phishing attack:
Phishing attacks are often carried out through email, voice call or SMS. But there are ways to identify these suspicious emails, calls or messages, some of which are as follows –
Banks never ask for your bank account, debit or credit card information. So if this information is asked in these mails, voice or SMS, then it is fake.
What is Phishing in Cybercrime?
Phishing is a cybercrime involving a target or target by email, telephone or text message to masquerade as a legitimate institution by providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details and passwords by an individual. is contacted.
The information is then used to access important accounts and can result in identity theft and financial loss.
Why is it called phishing?
The term phishing was coined around 1996 by hackers stealing America Online accounts and passwords. In line with the game of angling, these Internet scammers were using e-mail lures, setting hooks to "fish" for passwords and financial data from a "sea" of Internet users.
They knew that although most users would not take this option, there is some possibility. The term was mentioned in January 1996 on the alt.2600 Hacker Newsgroup, but may have been used earlier in the print journal 2600, The Hacker Quarterly.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the word "phishin" is commonly used to describe these moves. There is also a good reason to use "ph" in place of "f" in the spelling of the word. Some of the early hackers were known as phreaks. Phreaking refers to the discovery, experimentation and study of telecommunication systems. Phreaks and hackers have always been closely linked. The "ph" spelling was used to associate phishing scams with these underground communities.
What is Phishing Email?
Phishing e-mail – Possibly the most widely known form of phishing, this attack is an attempt to steal sensitive information via email that appears to be from a legitimate organization. It is not a targeted attack and can be conducted collectively.
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