Phishing has become the most common threat and data breach technique seen in the industry per IBM’s recent Cost of Data Breach report. ‘Bad Actors’ aim to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information by getting you to interact with malicious content. Phishing attacks and the information gained from them are often used for nefarious activities which can lead to bad outcomes for you and your business. Globally, a data breach costs an organization 4.88 Million and 9.36 Million in the US on average. Those are large numbers! With 15% of all data breaches being attributed to Phishing, being able to identify and understand the different kinds of phishing attacks is crucial in protecting your information.

Phishing is a type of cyberattack where bad actors disguise themselves as legitimate organizations or individuals, most commonly through email or text messages. Their goal is to steal sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, business secrets, other personal information they can use to gain additional access or to install malware onto your device(s). Phishing attacks are ever evolving and continue to become more sophisticated with bad actors using increasingly convincing messages that are hard to differentiate from legit communications.

Some of the most common types of phishing attacks include:

• Email Phishing: Fake emails that appear to be from legitimate companies.
• Spear Phishing: Targeted, deliberate messaging attacks against specific individuals.
• Whaling or Whale Phishing: Phishing that targets high-level or executive leadership in an organization.
• Clone Phishing: Copies of legitimate emails that contain malicious links or attachments.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Phishing: Phishing attacks that are generated by AI. This can be dangerous because they lack any spelling or grammatical errors that attacks often can be identified by.

Understanding the different kinds of phishing attacks and being able to identify them is the best way to prevent falling victim to them. Educating people is incredibly important as it all starts there. Start with regularly scheduled security training for all individuals in your organization and align coaching for folks with it. Ensuring software and applications are updated and secure, regular security risk assessments, and email filtering are all accessible steps and just a few of the additional things you can do to keep your information secure.

Phishing is a growing threat, but with the right measures, you can protect your business from the costs of a breach. IQ Wired is committed to helping you defend against all forms of cybercrime. Contact us today so we can assist with solutions that could help you now, near term and in the future.