Brand reputation is of paramount importance for any business to achieve tremendous success, irrespective of the field it belongs to. However, today’s technological world is filled with uncertainty. Both small and big businesses are being targeted by hackers from all over the world. The purpose is either to destroy its reputation or to blackmail them to give in lots of money. Hence, as a business owner, you need to be aware of different types of online attacks that your organization might be susceptible to.
Types of phishing attack
1. Whaling:
This type is aimed at senior executives and high value, lucrative targets referred to as ‘whales’. This is because these people are said to have easier access sensitive information and funds of their respective organizations. Whaling email is one such example that targets financial managers. Purportedly, it updates targets with vendor related payment details. However, the truth is that it may contain payment details that simply lead directly towards cyber criminal’s account.
2. Spear phishing:
These emails are mostly targeted at particular groups of people or organizations. Rather, they are personalized keeping in mind the target audience who are likely to become the victims. The latter tend to clink on links provided within the email content. For instance, emails may pose like it has been sent by the HR department. It has a highly engaging topic and custom domain name thereby making its victims to ‘believe’ in its authenticity to provide valuable details.
3. CEO Fraud:
In this type of scam, the customer service agent or other employees are sent an email to divulge sensitive information. Such emails claim to be sent by the company CEO (Chief Executive Officer). Since the email is presumed from a very high authority, the employee might take urgent actins as directed. It can be making payments to some bank account mentioned in the email. It will appear realistic sounding and also have similar type of domain.
4. Smishing:
Such attacks generally take over chats, sms text messages including message-based phishing attacks. Hackers are aware of the fact that text-based messages do not contain any branding or sender domains. Hence, its legitimacy cannot be doubted by the victims until they fall prey to it. Smishing message can be from the boss that might need some urgent action to be taken by the recipient. This is likely to hamper brand reputation and overall business.
5. Vishing:
Such scams generally take over voice messages or the phone. The perpetrator in most cases poses as a supplier vendor or partner firm of the company of the target audience. The victim is then urged to divulge certain sensitive information or make payment. Since the caller possesses some authority, the victim might not verify the caller’s identity, thus getting duped of information or money.
6. BEC (Business email compromise) :
This scam takes place as the hacker acts as a vendor, customer or business partner. Such attacks mostly use business terminologies while involving detailed research. It may also use chains of messages so as to make believe the scam to be true.
7. Pretexting:
It is also referred to as social engineered phishing. In this type, a story or ‘pretext’ is sued for duping victims to make give up credentials or make payments. There are also cases of attackers to be led to enter the company system freely without the knowledge of the victim. The latter can even be a customer service agent. People in generally are naturally helpful, eager to assist those in need. Such people are more susceptible to become victims to these types of scams.
It is necessary to understand that phishing attack only has increased with time. Hence it becomes important for all businesses to take adequate measures to safeguard their sensitive information and capital.
