This article will walk you through 6 More Common Phishing Scams you and your employees should keep an eye out for in 2021.
Phishing techniques have become more cunning, subtle, and more difficult to tell from the real deal. The bad guys never sleep, but neither do your employees when equipped with shatterproof cybersecurity knowledge.
Stay with us to learn about 6 widespread phishing examples and how to read through the red flags in an otherwise concerningly legit-looking email that could fool the best of us if unprepared.
As discussed in a previous post, the common ground for all types of phishing emails is the use of social engineering strategies. Social engineering leverages the natural human tendency to trust people and organizations.
Thus, many of your employees could fail to carefully detect potential red flags and recognize a malicious email. Email phishing victims are tricked into believing they are helping their company by transferring funds, providing or updating account credentials, or give access to confidential organization data.
6 Common Phishing Scams
Make sure your employees are aware of these common phishing scams:
1. Account Deactivation
You receive an email from PayPal letting you know that your account has been compromised and will be deactivated unless you confirm your credit card details. The link in the email will take you to a fake but genuine-looking PayPal website. Unfortunately, the stolen credit card information is used in further cybercrime unless you know better and don’t disclose your sensitive data.
2. Compromised Credit Card
Cybercriminals will often do research on their victims. For example, the scammer knows that you made a recent purchase at Apple and sends you an email pretending to be from Apple customer support. The email tells you that your credit card details could have been compromised and asks you to verify your credit card information to protect your account.
3. Wire Transfers
Let’s say your CEO is currently traveling, and you receive an email from them, where they ask you to help out by transferring funds to a foreign partner. This type of phishing email tells you that the fund request is utterly urgent and required to secure a new partnership. Unfortunately, without proper security awareness training, you’re likely to make the wire transfer, believing you are helping both your company and the CEO.
4. Social Media Request
Imagine getting a Facebook friend request from someone who has the same Facebook friends you have. Maybe you don’t recognize the person at first glance, but you assume the request doesn’t really raise red flags because of the common friends, so you hit “Accept.” This new friend sends you a Facebook message with a link to a video which, when clicked, installs malware on your computer and infects the whole company network.
5. Fake Google Docs Login
Cybercriminals often use this method. First, they create a fake Google Docs login page and then send a cunning email hoping to trick you into entering your login credentials into the phishing website. They may put it this way: “We’ve updated our login credential policy, please confirm your account by logging into Google Docs.”
6. Company Tech Support Request
You’re one of your employees, and you receive an email from the IT department asking you to install a new instant messaging software. The email looks legitimate. However, the sender uses a spoofed address, slightly different from the real one. If you install the said software, you will put your entire company at risk. Expect a ransomware attack soon.
What Can You Do To Protect Your Company From Phishing Attacks?
Each of the examples above shows us just how easily your employees can be tricked by a trivial email. The more you make your staff more familiar with how phishing works, the easier it is to push for security-oriented company culture.
Fortunately, we are here for you. There are many reasons you need security awareness training for your employees and should choose ATTACK Simulator, but let’s stick to a few:
- To prevent cyberattacks and breaches
- To strenghten your technological defenses
- To attract more customers
- To make you more socially responsible
- To empower your employees
- To meet compliance standards
- To prevent downtimes and maintain a good reputation
Mistakes are the best teachers, so what better way to educate your employees on phishing attempts than facing them with one? Our realistic phishing simulations will expose them to life-like hands-on fake phishing attacks.
Here are some awesome perks of choosing us:
- Automated attack simulation – we simulate all kinds of cyberattacks: phishing, malware, ransomware, spear-phishing, identity theft, online privacy attacks, online scams etc.
- Real-life scenarios – we evaluate users’ vulnerability to give company-related or pesonal data away using realistic web-pages.
- User behavior analysis – we gather user data and compile it in extensive reports to give you a detailed picture of your employees’ security awareness level.
- Malicious file replicas – our emails contain malware file replicas, to make the simulation as realistic as it can be.
- Interactive lessons – if employees fail to recognize our traps and fall into one, they will be redirected to landing pages with quick reads on the best security practices.
- We impersonate popular brands on our simulated phishing pages – the user will be more tempted to click on the URL or open the attachment in the email.
ATTACK Simulator’s Security Awareness Training program will help you enrich your employees’ cybersecurity knowledge with up-to-date security best practices to keep your company safe from scammers and avoid potentially irremediable damage.
Do you still think you can afford to postpone security awareness training? Put your employees to the test with our free security awareness training trial and see how well they’d do!
Attribution:
Feature Image: Photo by Chris Hardy on Unsplash
