What Exactly Is Phishing?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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Phishing is

a type of online scam where criminals impersonate legitimate organizations via email, text message

, advertisement or other means in order to steal sensitive information.

What is the best definition of phishing?

:

a scam by which an Internet user is duped

(as by a deceptive email message) into revealing personal or confidential information which the scammer can use illicitly.

What are examples of phishing?

  • Phishing Email. Phishing emails still comprise a large portion of the world’s yearly slate of devastating data breaches. …
  • Spear Phishing. …
  • Link Manipulation. …
  • Fake Websites. …
  • CEO Fraud. …
  • Content Injection. …
  • Session Hijacking. …
  • Malware.

What are 4 types of phishing?

  • Spear Phishing.
  • Whaling.
  • Vishing.
  • Email Phishing.

What are the 5 types of phishing?

  • Email phishing. Most phishing attacks are sent by email. …
  • Spear phishing. There are two other, more sophisticated, types of phishing involving email. …
  • Whaling. Whaling attacks are even more targeted, taking aim at senior executives. …
  • Smishing and vishing. …
  • Angler phishing.

What are the 2 most common types of phishing attacks?

  • Email phishing. Also called “deception phishing,” email phishing is one of the most well-known attack types. …
  • HTTPS phishing. …
  • Spear phishing. …
  • Whaling/CEO fraud. …
  • Vishing. …
  • Smishing. …
  • Angler phishing. …
  • Pharming.

Why it is called phishing?

Name Origins

Phishing scams

use spoofed emails and websites as lures to prompt people to voluntarily hand over sensitive information

. It isn’t surprising, then, that the term “phishing” is commonly used to describe these ploys. … The “ph” spelling was used to link phishing scams with these underground communities.

How can phishing be prevented?

Use

anti-phishing protection and anti-spam software

to protect yourself when malicious messages slip through to your computer. Anti-malware is included to prevent other types of threats. Similar to anti-spam software, anti-malware software is programmed by security researchers to spot even the stealthiest malware.

Is phishing illegal?

While phishing is covered under various state laws,

there is no single federal statute that directly criminalizes this type of activity

. However, there are broader federal criminal laws that do apply to phishing and other identity theft crimes.

Why is phishing such a difficult problem to prevent?

Alternatively, the web-link may contain malicious code to compromise the target’s computer. One of the things that makes phishing attacks tricky is that

they can be distributed by compromising the email address books of compromised computers

. So the email may appear to have been sent by a known and trusted source.

Can texts be phishing?

Text Message Phishing — or “Smishing” — Scams. ATTENTION Call back now to reactivate your credit card. … Text message or SMS phishing—also called “smishing”—occurs

when scam artists use deceptive text messages to lure consumers into providing

their personal or financial information.

What is similar to phishing?


Pharming

. Similar to phishing, pharming sends users to a fraudulent website that appears to be legitimate. However, in this case, victims do not even have to click a malicious link to be taken to the bogus site.

What is the most common example of phishing?

  • The Fake Invoice Scam. Let’s start with arguably the most popular phishing template out there – the fake invoice technique. …
  • Email Account Upgrade Scam. …
  • Advance-fee Scam. …
  • Google Docs Scam. …
  • PayPal Scam. …
  • Message From HR Scam. …
  • Dropbox Scam.

What are two methods for avoiding phishing attacks?

  • Know what a phishing scam looks like. …
  • Don’t click on that link. …
  • Get free anti-phishing add-ons. …
  • Don’t give your information to an unsecured site. …
  • Rotate passwords regularly. …
  • Don’t ignore those updates. …
  • Install firewalls. …
  • Don’t be tempted by those pop-ups.

What is DNS phishing?

If the Phishing Detecting Device detects that

a bank card number is being sent to a suspicious website

, the device will send an inverse DNS query to the DNS server of the related bank. …

What is an example of spear phishing?

Example 1:

The attacker is encouraging the target to sign an “updated employee handbook

” This is an example of a spear phishing email where the attacker is pretending to work in HR and is encouraging the target to sign a new employee handbook.

Charlene Dyck
Author
Charlene Dyck
Charlene is a software developer and technology expert with a degree in computer science. She has worked for major tech companies and has a keen understanding of how computers and electronics work. Sarah is also an advocate for digital privacy and security.