Phishing and Spear Phishing Attacks

76% of organizations state that they been a victim of at least one phishing attack in 2017--Wombat 2018 State of the Phish.

Phishing attacks occur when an attacker sends a fraudulent e-mail that appears to come from someone else. Usually, the e-mail will seem to come from a trusted individual or a trusted organization.

Often, the e-mail will have a link that brings you to a login page to what seems to be a trusted site. The site is also fraudulent, and therefore your attempts to login will provide the attacker with your username and password.

Other times, the e-mail may contain specific instructions from a trusted individual. An example of this type of attack occurs when an accounting manager receives an e-mail from the CEO asking him or her to send a wire transfer. This type of targeted attack is called Spear Phishing.

This is one of the most common e-mail based Cybersecurity attacks. Verizon reports that in 2016, 1 in 131 e-mails contained malware. This is the highest rate in 5 years.

Is your organization protected?