Phishing is a technique that involves tricking you into thinking you are on a secure website or responding to a legitimate business email to steal confidential information, passwords, etc. Phishing schemes are still one of the most serious threats to companies including internet giants like Google and Facebook. As criminals adapt their techniques, you (and your employees) should be aware of the scams du jour.
Here are some of the most popular phishing attacks happening today.
1. World Cup and vacation rentals.
Scammers are duping fans with phishing emails that include enticing yet fake, affordable tickets to the World Cup in Russia and free trips to Moscow. Ignore any email that claims you’ve won World Cup tickets or a lottery prize to attend the Cup.
2. Account takeover.
While business email compromise makes up almost 50 percent of the $1.4 billion in total losses from internet crime a new rising threat is account takeover tactics. This is when a hacker infiltrates your e-mail account and learns what type of business you conduct. Since last year, hackers have been targeting real estate agents and stealing wire transfers for house sales.
3. Via social media.
Social phishing typically references current, newsworthy events. We see Facebook messages, SMS, iMessage, Android Hangouts, WhatsApp, and even rudimentary attacks via Snapchat. The attackers do what they always do–adapt to new channels. Do research when you get a sketchy message. Search for a sender’s address in spam databases such as spamhaus.org, or check the sender’s reputation with reputationauthority.org
The majority of all malware/viruses/data breaches start with phishing. That means even if a small portion of employees click these links it opens the entire company up to the impacts of malware/viruses/data breaches.
That could mean shared drives down for extended periods of time, it could mean loss of banking information and/or it could mean a loss of customer/employee information that requires state notifications.
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Reference:
- https://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/biggest-email-phishing-scams-2018.html
