Phishing is a social engineering attack mostly used by cybercriminals to attack clients for their confidential information. In general, the common details that are commonly asked by cybercriminals are
- Date of birth of the clients or users
- Social security numbers
- Phone numbers
- Credit card information
- Home address
- Password details
The attacks may be concentrated on a specific user or the organization itself. Depending on that, the attacker will enquire about different information from the victim.
In phishing attacks, the criminals will disguise themselves as a trusted or genuine entity to cheat the victims open an email. By not observing carefully and trusting the attacker, the beneficiary was then tricked into providing confidential details or opening a suspicious weblink. This will help the attacker to create a starting point for his further attack. The weblink may install malware or attack servers, or collect data from the database and upload it to the attacker system.
These kinds of data thefts will be used to steal money or unapproved purchase of resources and more. With the organization’s confidential information, the attackers may understand the security protocols and prepare to bypass or break the security for more dangerous attacks. Or gain access to more privileged information, which may destroy the foundation of the organization itself.
If an organization undergoes such an attack, the financial losses will be very severe. The loss of assets, reputation may reduce the company’s market share and may go bankrupt.
Depending on the scale of the phishing attack, it may target an individual for money or a severe security incident on a business organization. So it is recommended to take phishing mails as serious attacks and report them to the cybersecurity team.
Phishing attack starts when the user receives phishing mail but only when the user responds to that subjective mail does the true attacks start. Some of the general actions required in phishing emails are opening an attachment, Providing the details in a form, clicking on the links, sending money to a charity organization (not the real one), and more.
