What Is Phishing?
It should be.
People and businesses alike are falling victim to phishing scams daily. Find out exactly what it is and how to protect against phishing so you know how to be safe when browsing online.
How is phishing done?
Phishing isn’t hacking in a conventional sense. Instead of using complicated methods to breach defenses, cybercriminals use social engineering. This is where they pretend to be trusted names so you aren’t suspicious of their intentions.
Once they’ve gained your trust, you essentially hand over your information all by yourself, without coercion. This is because they construct fake emails and websites to imitate the real things.
Once you see those emails and sites, you think they’re genuine, so you enter your credentials. With this information, the scammers can then try your login details on various other sites to infiltrate your funds or trade secrets.
MORE : Example of Spear Phishing
What are the different types of phishing?
There are five types of phishing attacks you should keep an eye out for, specially understand spear phishing vs phishing properly:
- Vishing: This is voice phishing, so the media used are phone and VOIP.
- Smishing: This is SMS phishing, or text phishing.
- Search engine phishing: Scammers do SEO research to have their fake pages rank high on Google.
- Spear phishing: A targeted phishing attack on a person or organization, read how spear phishing prevention helps.
- Whaling: Spear phishing attack on high-level people in organizations.
MORE : How to Prevent Phishing and Spoofing
Protect yourself from phishing
You now know the answer to the question“what is phishing,” so the next step is to upgrade your security and practice phishing prevention best practices. Although you can possibly identify attempts, that’s not enough. Antivirus programs can also detect phishing email, but unfortunately, they can’t catch all the attacks.
To get the best protection possible, add phishing prevention software to your arsenal. When they work together, these two utilities can prevent cybercriminals from getting their hands on your sensitive information.
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