Phishing attacks have been around for a long time. They are designed to steal your credentials or trick you into installing malicious software. Unfortunately, they have persisted in the IT world because they’re both devastatingly simple and effective. Spear phishing is a more modern and more effective version of this traditional attack.
A typical phishing attack involves a hacker sending out a malicious email to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of users. The attacker’s email is designed to look like it comes from a bank, financial service, or tax office. Often aiming to trick you into logging in to a fake online service, a phishing attack captures the login details you enter so an attacker may use them to enter the genuine service later.
By sending out tens of thousands of emails at a time, attackers can guarantee that even if only one percent of people fall for it, there is a lot of profit to be made by draining accounts. Although, spear phishing is a more modern, more sophisticated, and far more dangerous form of attack. Rather than play a numbers game, attackers specialize their attack and specifically target business and their staff.
Spear Phishing: A Convincing, Dangerous Attack
While a traditional phishing attack throws out a broad net in the hope of capturing as many credentials as possible, spear phishing is targeted and precise. The goal is to convince a single business, department, or individual that a fraudulent email or website is genuine.
The attacker focuses on building a relationship and establishing trust with the target. By building trust and convincing the target that they are who they are pretending to be, the user is more likely to open attachments, follow links, or provide sensitive details.
Just think about how many times you have followed a link or opened an attachment just because it has come from a contact you recognized and have trusted before.
A Trusted E-mail
The malicious email can appear to come from a vendor you deal with regularly. It may even look like an invoice you are expecting to receive. For example, attackers can simply substitute the vendors’ banking details for their own, hoping the target will not notice the difference.
Such an attack is very difficult to detect. It takes a keen eye, strong working knowledge, and constant awareness to keep your company protected. Even a single, small mistake by an unaware member of staff can compromise your business accounts.
Defending Your Business
The key to stopping a spear phishing attack is education. Learning attack techniques, and how to protect against them is the single biggest thing you can do to enhance business security.
Whenever you deal with a vendor in a business transaction, you should always consider important questions before proceeding. Are you expecting this email? Is the vendor attempting to rush you into a quick decision or transaction? Have you checked all the details are correct and as you expected? Sometimes a simple query to the vendor can protect you against worst-case scenarios.
Additionally, a phishing attack can be halted in its tracks with a strong IT security package. Web filtering prevents malicious emails and links from entering the network, shutting down attacks before any damage can be done.
Good Security Practice
As with many types of IT threats, good security practices help mitigate damage. Locking down security to ensure employees only access the systems they need helps to prevent damage spreading across the network.
Enforcing unique and strong passwords prevents leaked credentials from affecting systems related to the one that has been compromised. Getting employees set up with a password manager and good security policies can do the world of good to boost your security to the level it needs to be.
Contact us today to audit your security practices. It could be the difference that secures your firm against sophisticated spear phishing attacks.
STG IT Consulting Group would love to meet with you and assess your current cybersecurity systems.
Click here to schedule a free 15-minute meeting with Stan Kats, our Client Engagement Specialist and Senior Technologist.
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