What Helps Protect from Spear Phishing? Find Out

Knowing the warning signs will help you avoid becoming a victim as cyber-attacks grow. Email spear-phishing is constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Usually, spear phishing attacks target an individual or small group. The attacker performs extensive research on a specific target that uses generalized pretexts (such as problems with online accounts or missed delivery notices) to trick them. A spear-phishing email is crafted carefully, has an artistic touch for resemblance, and camouflages well. So, what helps protect from spear phishing? This article at Raconteur by Chris Stokel-Walker shares the top five types of cyber scams.

What Helps Protect from Spear Phishing?

Spear phishing is a more advanced variation of conventional phishing. It uses social engineering to craft emails to trick specific individuals or organizations. Therefore, spear phishers research a person or business on the internet, social media, and the dark web. Then build a highly convincing email that will give the victim a false sense of security, leading them to share personal information.

Types of Spear Phishing

Phishing aims to trick the victim into clicking on a link or revealing their bank account information. They do this through an email or text message spoofing an organization or individual.Companies need to be aware that internal and external factors commonly contribute to incidents and breaches, says Jessica Barker, co-founder and co-CEO of cybersecurity consulting firm Cygenta. Attackers are aware of the information to target and can undermine public trust and harm an organization’s reputation. So, insider threats are also incredibly potent.According to Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, “the biggest commercial crime is BEC, business email compromise.” Train your staff to recognize suspicious emails and understand the likelihood of being targeted. This involves verifying that the URLs in emails or texts correspond to the official websites.Woodward cautions that ransomware is the most challenging to recover from, and you must prepare organizations to combat it with robust security measures. Furthermore, you should train your staff, insure yourself, and patch your software regularly to help prevent disruptions caused by ransomware attacks.Additionally, criminals use remote access tools (RATs) to enter other computers to steal sensitive information. Craig Mullish, a detective chief inspector with the City of London Police, advises: “Only install software or provide remote access to your computer if requested by someone you know and trust.”

To read the original article, click on https://www.raconteur.net/technology/five-cyber-scams-to-avoid/.

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