What is Phishing?
Phishing, Wikipedia tells us, is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick a human victim into revealing sensitive information to the attacker, or to deploy malicious software (like ransomware) on the victim’s infrastructure.
We all think that we would never fall for something like phishing.
Unfortunately, around two thirds of us would be wrong!
Recent studies have shown that around 70% of people are falling for phishing attacks.
And if you want more proof that these attacks are effective, just look at the numbers of them being deployed (around 3.4 billion per day worldwide) – cyber criminals know that they get results this way!
Why does anybody fall for phishing attacks?
There are several reasons why so many of us DON’T spot what’s going on when we receive a phishing message:
- Some are extremely convincing. They look genuine. They use the official company logos, layout and all the rest.
- They can be cleverly targetted. This way, they don’t seem out of place. You WERE expecting a delivery this week, for example, so communication that appears to be from the courier does not raise any alarm bells…
- They often create a sense of urgency. This means that you are tempted to act quickly, and are likely to be less careful than you would usually be.
- They can also instill fear – suggesting that you’re in trouble for something, or will lose access to your emails, perhaps. This again can cause you to act more impulsively than normal.
How good am I at spotting phishing attempts?
Try this test to find out!
It is really useful to see the sorts of things that scammers try. It’ll make you think, and hopefully leave you better placed to spot phishing attacks in the future.
If you have any questions about any aspect of security online, give us a call in the datamills office on 0114 287 0510.