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Robyn Duda
PHISHING attacks have become more complicated, making the internet ever more unsafe.
A cybersecurity firm confirmed the first quarter of 2022 had the most observed phishing attacks in a single quarter since the data has been tracked.
Phishing attacks are schemes that rely on the target mistaking the sender for a person or company of authority.
They are most commonly executed via email with the hopes that the victim will turn over information that is private to them or of value to an organization.
Help Net Security CEO Joshua Crumbaugh posted a video warning that new phishing attacks are powered by artificial intelligence and more surgically targeted to maximize fear.
Crumbaugh described AI-powered phishing schemes as “the scariest and most impressive phishing attacks I’ve ever seen” in a video.
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Crumbaugh said that AI-led phishing attacks were more effective in getting people to click malicious links.
Newer attacks also employ the use of breached data to target victims and play to their fears.
Stolen data contains real information about a person and it is leveraged against victims in a scary and violating manner.
“When you combine that with AI, these targeted phishing attacks are getting very sophisticated.”
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These newer tactics are being deployed alongside old practices like typo-squatting – hackers will buy the URL of common misspellings of popular websites and build a replica for hijacking log-ins and passwords.
People of standing are often impersonated in email scams.
“A lot of companies don’t realize that their executives are being spoofed on social media. This is a huge business risk,” a product strategist for a security company said.
In a blog post titled “The FTC Chairman is not writing to you,” the Federal Trade Commission advises deleting emails suspected of being phishing scams.
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No person is immune to a phishing email landing in their inbox – political operatives have fallen into phishing traps with disastrous consequences.
Stay alert for suspicious emails and never send your information across the internet unless you are certain of the receiver.
