Have you received a similar message to “You have won! Click the link to Redeem?”

Undoubtedly, we have all received a similar message, email, or call that is fake and corrupted. Its primary aim is to make you visit a fake website to download malware such as viruses onto your computer, or to steal personal data that could result in identity theft.

According to the most recent UK government cyber security breaches survey in 2023: 56% of businesses and 62% of charities that reported having had breaches or attacks in the past 12 months, felt phishing attacks were the most disruptive types of attack that organisations face. It also showed that the percentage of phishing attacks is increasing.

It’s important to be able to identify phishing attacks as they can happen to anyone. 

Phishing attacks come in different forms and it's beneficial to be informed about them.

“Spear phishing” is a type of phishing that targets a specific person rather than a group of people and the attackers will include information personal to the target, so their phishing attempt incorporates those personal details in order to appear more legitimate, therefore these phishing attacks are often more successful.

Whaling is a subset of spear phishing, however, it focuses more on high-net-worth individuals because any personal details of these individuals provide the attackers with potential money and lots more information.

Smishing is a phishing attack deployed through SMS. This type of attack gets more visibility hence more tend to fall for it because of the general SMS notification which can alert a person and because people can tend to go through their text messages more than their emails. 

Recently, there has been an increase specifically in this type of phishing.

Finally, Vishing is a type of phishing attack that is carried out through phone calls, the attackers pretend to be from reputable companies in order to trick individuals into giving their personal information.

Phishing emails are becoming harder to identify however there are some key features to keep a look out for: spelling errors, a sense of urgency, requests for personal information, and links.