Phishing Campaigns

What is Phishing?

Phishing is the act of attempting to manipulate the recipient of a malicious email into opening and engaging with it. A sender of a malicious email intends to deceive a victim by making the email seem important and from a reputable source. These phishing emails may include harmful attachments, like PDF or Word documents, which once opened can cause harm to the user’s computer by installing forms of malware, ransomware, or other unsavory software. Phishing emails can also contain malicious links in the body that can lead a user to a fraudulent site. These sites are used to collect confidential information such as usernames and passwords, or to install malware onto a device. Once the victim’s information has been obtained, scammers will monetize the data by selling it to the highest bidder on Dark Web sites.

Deceptive Phishing is any attack by which fraudsters impersonate a legitimate company and attempt to steal people’s personal information or login credentials.

Spear Phishing is when fraudsters customize their attack emails with a target’s name, position, company, work phone number or other information in an attempt to trick the recipient into taking some action being requested by a known connection.

CEO Fraud is targeting an executive in an organization. Fraudsters attempt to isolate an executive and steal their login credentials. With these credentials they are able to perform a CEO scam. CEO scams occur when an email, seemingly addressed from a CEO or other member of senior management, is falsely created by a scammer in order to exploit the trust of employees. The imposter email seeks for the target to wire funds or share confidential information with the scammer.

How to Identify Phishing

1. Confirm personal information
   1. Often you will receive emails disguised to look authentic. They might mimic the style of your current company or an outside business such as a bank or credit card company. These emails may have requests for personal information that you would not usually provide, such as banking information or login credentials. It is important you don’t click on or respond to these emails. Before responding, determine the legitimacy of the email by contacting an organization directly or searching on the internet.
2. Fraudulent email and web addresses
   1. Phishing emails often come from an address that appears to be legitimate, but at a closer glance can have some discrepancies. These emails may contain the names of genuine companies and might be made to replicate the company’s personal sites or email accounts. Brand logos and trademarks do not guarantee that an email is real. Hackers can use these images or download them from the internet to mimic an existing company. Even antivirus badges can be inserted into emails to persuade victims into thinking an email is from a legitimate source.
3. Grammar
   1. Phishing emails can sometimes contain poor language in the body of the message. Grammatical errors and conflictive sentence structure are common in these fraudulent emails. A legitimate company would have constructed an outbound communication professionally and checked for spelling errors and other mistakes. While poor grammar is a giveaway, not 100% of phishing emails will have sloppy grammar, so it is important to keep on your toes.
4. Scenarios
   1. Many phishing emails tempt to instill a sense of worry into the recipient. The emails may give a scenario that depends on you entering your credentials to solve it. For example, an email may state that your account will be closed if you don’t enter your personal information and act now. If ever unsure of what an email is asking of you and why, be sure to contact the company through other methods.
5. Attachments
   1. If you receive an email from a seemingly random company you do not affiliate with, and the email references something unexpected, the attachment might include some malicious malware or virus. These attachments may contain a URL or trojan horse designed to compromise your system, if opened. Send these emails to your security team instead of attempting to open them yourself.

Ways to Prevent Phishing Attacks

1. Be wary of links
   1. Hover over potential links in emails to verify the
      legitimacy before clicking on them, as this can prevent navigation to fraudulent sites or links that may contain malware. Hovering lets you see a site’s full URL, and from here you can determine if the website is secure and the correct destination before visiting.
2. Anti-phishing toolbars
   1. Some internet browsers can be fitted with anti-phishing toolbars that run checks on sites before you visit and compare them to lists of known phishing sites. This helps prevent you from navigating to fraudulent sites and decreases the risk of downloading any malicious content.
3. Verify a site's security
   1. URLs that begin with "https" and have a closed lock icon near the address bar, are secure websites. These sites allow sensitive information to be entered with little risk.
4. Don't send financial information via email
   1. You should only communicate secure information such
      as usernames, passwords or banking information via a secure website or over the phone. Don’t fill out any forms in emails unless verified as legitimate.
5. Educate
   1. Enroll in phishing campaigns, which are simulated tests to help teach employees to identify threats and prevent data breaches.