Cybercriminals are constantly developing new ways to steal data from unsuspecting victims. Spear phishing is one such technique. This attack involves sending employees malicious emails or text messages, tricking them into giving away their login credentials.
Spear phishing is a social engineering attack that uses suspicious emails to trick people into revealing personal information or clicking on malicious links and attachments for financial gains, trade secrets, or military information. The attacker sends an email message pretending to be from a trusted source to trick the victim into opening it. Once opened, the malicious file will download malware onto the computer, which can capture keystrokes, record audio, take screenshots, access the webcam, and more.
The act of spear phishing may sound easy however, spear phishing emails have improved within recent years and are now very hard to detect without prior knowledge of spear phishing protection.
Spear-Phishing attackers target victims who place private information on the internet. These attackers might browse through attack campaigns on an individual’s social media accounts while searching for personal data such as names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, passwords, and email addresses and more research into the target organization. From a social profile, these attackers can locate a person’s email address, friends list, geographical location, and any posts regarding new gadgets that were recently bought.
With all this info, the attacker could pretend to be a friend or a familiar figure and send a convincing but fake message to their victim. These messages often include instructions about why they need sensitive data. Victims are asked to click on a link that leads them to a fake website, asking for passwords, account numbers, pin codes, and access codes.
A criminal pretending to be a friend might ask for your username and password for various sites so that he can access your social media posts. Spam emails can also trick users into clicking on links or opening files that install malware onto their computers.
Phishing attacks can also trick people into giving out personal information by sending them fraudulent emails that appear to come from legitimate sources.
Social engineering techniques use various methods to trick people into believing their scams. They use this leverage to persuade an innocent victim to trust them and cooperate.
There are several ways you can protect yourself against spear phishing scams:
Train and educate your employees to recognize fake emails and how to avoid them. Use simulated phishing exercises that are specifically designed to teach your team members how to spot and report suspicious messages.
Labeling emails that come from outside the organization can help employees identify if an email is legitimate or not.
Make sure you develop clear guidelines on how you want your staff to handle customer requests. For example, say, “We will never ask you for your personal information. If someone sends out a fake request for your personal information, your staff won’t fall for it because they know you don’t send out unsolicited messages.
Once scammers convince their targets that they’re legitimate, they might be able to get access to sensitive personal information, bank accounts, and wire transfer requests. This can lead to widespread fraudulent activity and security breaches.
Experienced spear phishing attacks are remarkably effective in gaining a foothold. They can use it to launch APT campaigns that wreak long-term damage.
There are many types of phishing attacks. The most common techniques include CEO fraud scams, malicious attachments, ransomware attacks, clone phishing attacks, and brand impersonation scams.
Criminals often target executives in accounting and finance departments through CEO email fraud and Business email compromise scams (BEC), where scammers pose as high-ranking officials of companies they’ve hacked. They may pretend to be an executive officer or even the CEO themselves and send emails requesting information to employees to purchase gift cards or wire funds to external bank accounts.
If you receive an email with suspicious attachments or links, do not click them! A simple way to verify the integrity of a link is to hover your mouse pointer over the link, which should show the full URL. Even if you trust the sender, you should double-check the URL before clicking any links. Malicious software may contain viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, or other potentially unwanted applications.
In a clone attack, the attacker sends out a fake version of an email message, hoping to fool recipients into believing it came from someone they know. However, instead of inserting a link or attachment, the attacker replaces the actual email with a copy of itself.
Attackers often impersonate legitimate businesses in emails that mimic common email workflows they legitimately receive from those businesses. Instead of genuine links to authentic login pages, scammers insert links into these emails to fake logins to steal victims’ account credentials.
Although spear-phishing email attacks are very effective against businesses with a variety of subject lines like Action required, there are ways to detect them. Here are a few ways to detect spear phishing attempts.
When we get an email, we often see the senders’ names. Attackers can easily impersonate someone whose emails you’ve received before. If you get an email requesting sensitive information from you, verify the email first.
A phishing attack can be so devastating that its target doesn’t receive any warnings. Attackers can spoof your name, emails, and the format you usually receive. If the request is urgent and could lead to worse consequences if the info is leaked, don’t hesitate to contact the senders to verify the authenticity of the message and the requested information.
Most phishing emails include attachments that may contain malicious code or forms that ask for sensitive information. These attacks often use.exe,.zip, PDF, Word, or Excel document attachments.
If you hover your mouse over the “from” address, you’ll be able to determine whether the attachment is legitimate. Using images instead of text is one of the hackers’ latest techniques to bypass anti-virus programs.
Sound security policies and documented practices are a good start to defend against phishing scams, but they don’t jump out at you and tell you when someone is trying to get into your system.
To keep employees engaged, you must provide security awareness training on new threats, scams, and tricks to increase success rates. Employees should also be aware of how to protect themselves from these attacks, and only then will employees be able to recognize these type of attacks and take appropriate action.
Use Strong passwords and they should be unique. Use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, symbols, and punctuation marks. Never reuse passwords across multiple services. And if you’re worried someone might steal your password, change it often.
Don’t ever respond to spam messages requesting your username or password. You may receive such notifications from spammers trying to steal your identity, and they might also trick you into clicking links or downloading attachments containing viruses or spyware.
When in doubt, get off the computer and pick up the phone. If your boss or friend really needs help, they’ll appreciate getting a call instead of an email. Don’t feel pressured into replying to an email when you could simply check its legitimacy with a simple phone call.
Be careful about posting any sensitive information on the internet. Ensure you’re not exposing yourself to identity theft by sharing too much personal information. Also, check your privacy settings so no one can access your private messages without your permission.
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your sensitive accounts. Adding a layer of security to your login process can help to stop further damage after a successful phishing attack and protect. For example, if someone tries to log into your email account, they’ll receive a message asking them to verify their phone number before logging in. You can also enable 2FA on your online banking, credit card, and PayPal accounts.
All company employees should be aware of the process for reporting suspicious email messages to the IT security team. Promptly reporting potential threats helps protect the organization from cyber attacks.
In conclusion, we hope this article has helped you understand what spear phishing attack is and how it works. We’ve provided some tips to help you stay safe from these attacks.
