What is a Spear Phishing Attack?
The imitation and cheating we’re talking about here are Spear Phishing Attacks, which several cyber criminals use nowadays. In this attack, the adversary sends a mail to the victim employee and tries to imitate an official from higher-ups who want to assign some official task to the employee consisting of monetary transactions.
They try to ask the employee to do tasks on their behalf because they’re busy at a meeting and trying to cover things up with the transaction. As the email seems to be formal and genuine from a higher-up, employees tend to do the task. There the attacker wins the game, and the victim falls into the trap.
Money goes to a fabricated account, and the campaign’s target gets completed. But does Spear Phishing Attack resonates with Phishing? Let’s keep talking.
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What is the difference between a Phishing and Spear Phishing Attack?
Well, in a sense, they’re at par; however, there’s a slight difference between both.
A phishing Attack is an aggressive attack pointed at a whole group that could potentially harm a large crowd of people. With the help of spam emails and fake amazon gift cards, people get manipulated and taken care of by adversaries.
Whereas Spear Phishing Attack is targeted at an individual or an organization to manipulate them to get access to a specific kind of data that only that individual can provide. After getting access to that data, exploiting the system and credentials will be easy.
Types of Phishing Attacks
There are several types of phishing attacks. However, three of them are as follows:
- Spear Phishing Attack
- Whaling Phishing Attack
- Email Phishing Attack
Necessary Factors for Successful Spear Phishing Attack:
- Each Spear Phishing Email Look Authentic
- Spear Phishing Messages Target Each Intended Victim
- Spear Phishing Attacks Happen Over Time
- Spear Phishing Leverages Zero-Day Exploits
- Corporate Victims Often Lack the Right Tools
- Companies Lack or Don’t Enforce Computer Use Policies
- Employees Are Uneducated/ Ignorant of Phishing Risks
- Companies Lack Anti-Phishing Platforms Designed for Spear Phishing
The function of Spear-Phishing :
Spear Phishing Attack is usually used on a specific person from a firm to get specific data. To do that, they imitate a ranking official who could be involved in confidential activities within the firm. Moreover, some steps should be taken to get access to the data from the victim.
Steps of Spear-Phishing Attack
- Targets researched and pinpointed
- Fake email delivered
- Backdoor-created user information stolen
- Stolen data gathered and encrypted
- Stolen data transferred to the attacker
Prevention of the Spear-Phishing attack
- Filter your Email and Implement Anti-Phishing Protection
- Keep your systems up-to-date with the latest security patches
- Encrypt any sensitive company information you have
- Conduct Multi-factor authentication
- Use DMARC Technology
- Run Frequent Backups
- Conduct Email Security Training for Employees
- Be wary of Suspicious Emails
How could you trust Bytecode Security?
Bytecode Security has been in the cyber security industry for over the years and has offered information security knowledge to aspirants of cyber security. Organizations facing issues understanding consequences related to Spear Phishing Attacks could ask for Spear Phishing attack Services in India offered by Bytecode Security. With them, you can get guidance from well-qualified trainers with the latest techniques and tools currently used in the industry.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Spear Phishing Attack Sevices in India
What is spear phishing examples?
Some of the Spear Phishing Attacks examples are as follows:
● Fake Websites
● CEO Fraud
● Malware
● Smishing
● Vishing
What is spear phishing vs phishing?
Spear Phishing Attack is a target-based attack on a particular person/ organization to get a specific kind of data for the data collection of the adversaries. In comparison, usual phishing campaigns are run to trap many people for whatever data they carry with them.
What are the 3 types of spear phishing emails?
The 3 types of spear phishing emails are as follows:
1) The gift card request
2) The wire transfer request
3) The initial contact
What is a spear phishing email?
Spear Phishing Emails are considered one of the fatal cyber-attacks done by adversaries globally. The process of this attack needs an adversary to be impersonating a higher-up from the company in the email. After that, they should ask for an ‘n’ amount of money to be transferred as official operational money. If the victim accepts to transfer the money, the transaction will be successful, and the adversary will get the upper hand over the victim.
What is phishing, and how to prevent it?
Phishing is a kind of attack in which the adversary tries to send an email to a large group of people to get them engaged in an activity that could lead them to a trap specially set for them. After following the instructions in the email, victims gradually go down the path where there’s no turning back and will only end up at victim monetary loss. To prevent phishing attacks, you can use several methods. However, two of them are as follows:
1) Anti-Phishing Protection
2) Anti-Spam Software
What's the best defense against social engineering attacks like spear phishing?
You should lock your laptop/ computer while you’re away from your workstation. Security Software and Antivirus Protection are necessary for a standard protection layer. Always analyze computer security, network systems, and other assets. Conduct and Continuously Refreshing Online Security Awareness are some of the tricks you can do to secure your networks.