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What is Spear Phishing and How does it Work?

Soumalya Bhattacharyya
Aug 08, 2022

Hackers continue to modify their tactics and look for new and creative methods to defraud people out of hundreds or millions of dollars while cyber security companies attempt to improve their game to avoid cyber assaults and data breaches. They employ spear phishing assaults as one method of doing this.

Spear phishing and phishing in general are frauds that aim to deceive the target into giving the attacker sensitive data, such as account passwords.

Links or attachments can potentially trick a recipient into downloading malware unintentionally, giving the attacker access to the recipient's computer system and other private data. The targeted aspect of spear phishing sets it apart from more general phishing.

Attacks known as spear phishing include sending messages that are often tailored depending on the recipient's public information. This can cover information about the recipient's area of expertise, position within the company, interests, public and residential tax information, and any other details attackers may be able to get via social networks.

What is Spear Phishing?

Targeting certain people or groups inside an organization is the goal of the phishing technique known as spear phishing. It is a powerful variation of phishing, a sneaky technique that exploits email, social media, instant messaging, and other platforms to trick people into disclosing personal information or doing activities that compromise networks, cause data loss, or result in financial loss.

While spear phishing focuses on specific targets and requires prior investigation, other phishing techniques may employ shotgun techniques to send bulk emails to unrelated recipients.

Usually, a spear phishing attempt consists of an email and an attachment. The email contains details relevant to the target, such as the target's name and position within the organization. The probability that the victim will take all the required steps to spread the virus, such as opening the email and any attached files, is increased by this social engineering technique.

Spear phishing is frequently used in targeted attack campaigns to access a person's account or mimic a particular person, such a high-ranking official or someone involved in secretive business activities. Researchers from Trend Micro discovered that spear phishing emails were the source of more than 90% of targeted assaults in 2012.

Before initiating their assaults, spear phishing attackers do reconnaissance. Gathering several out-of-office messages from a business to ascertain how they style their email addresses and look for openings for specialized attack campaigns is one technique to do this. Other attackers obtain information from publicly accessible sources like social media.

How Spear Phishing Works?

Compared to phishing, spear phishing is a more focused cyberattack. Emails are customized for the intended recipient. For instance, the attacker could identify with a cause, assume the identity of a person the target knows, or use other social engineering strategies to win the victim over.

The attacker personalized the email to reflect the victim's personality and interests. The customisation is what sets spear phishing apart from regular phishing. Spear phishing is more time-consuming for the attacker because of this distinction, but it also has a very powerful method of operation.

When an unsuspecting victim replies to a phony email demand for action, this is known as spear phishing. Giving passwords, credit card information, visiting links to verify shipment details, or transferring money are examples of actions that fall under this category.

Since the cybercriminal has gathered private and sensitive information about the victim, these spear phishing emails appear legitimate. The purpose of using this information in the email is to deceive the receiver into thinking the communication is authentic.

These emails frequently look to be from the recipient's job, a friend, a family member, a bank, or a well-known online retailer. The recipient is driven to take urgent action to avoid suffering major losses, having their account closed, or facing legal repercussions by using a tone and voice that convey urgency.

Since they feel they should have known better, many people are embarrassed to disclose that they have been duped by a spear phishing email.

Everyone must go through security awareness training that emphasizes how simple it is to fall for cunning cybercriminals' tricks and reveal sensitive information.

It's crucial to keep in mind that spear phishing assaults rely on the human aspect; individuals are busy, reliable, and prone to mindlessly clicking links.

You may determine which employees are more likely to participate in spear phishing and phishing assaults by using a phishing simulation. You can also see how simple it is for one of these schemes to be effective.

Phishing was implicated in 36% of data breaches, up 11% from the prior year, according to Verizon's 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report. In connection with that, the research discovered that, of the over 5,200 verified breaches highlighted, 85% of them were focused on the human aspect.

In conclusion, spear phishing is a widespread cyber danger because of how successful it has grown. Criminals can compile enough information from publicly accessible social media and business websites to offer victims tailored emails they can trust.

People can be duped into disclosing information, access, and facts they know they should keep secret and protected through social engineering. Utilizing people's innate propensity to trust one another, social engineering and spear phishing work.

People feel they are behaving in the best interests of themselves and others, therefore they assume that requests for urgent money transfers from their employer or password updates from their bank are acceptable.

Also Read | Types of Phishing Attacks

Spear Phishing and Whaling

While a spear-phishing assault targets certain individuals, "whaling" is when an attacker targets one or more C-level executives. The phrase describes a senior executive's access to bank accounts as well as their high-privilege network account rights.

It's a profitable endeavor for a threat actor who undertakes careful research since executives are considerably more likely to fall victim to a spear phishing attempt.

Both small and large enterprises can become the target of spear phishing and other threat actors. Social engineering is another tactic used in large-scale attacks by whalers.

For instance, the attacker may collaborate with a partner who contacts the CEO to make the threat seem more real to the user who is being attacked. Target, JP Morgan, Home Depot, Anthem, and Anthem have all been the subject of spear phishing and whaling attacks.

Due to a spear-phishing attempt that targeted email providers, Epsilon lost $4 billion. One of the largest cyberattack payments to date was from the expense of recovering from damage and litigation because the harm was so serious.

What Tools Help With Spear Phishing?

Spear phishing is similar to phishing in that it may be carried out using a free email address and doesn't need any special tools. To get accounts to pay an invoice, all it takes is a free Gmail account with the CFO's name on it.

A lack of DNSSEC may be exploited, typosquatting, domain squatting, or other more advanced assaults can be used to boost email delivery success.

On the dark web, there are also phishing kits that can be purchased, making it simple to impersonate trustworthy websites that the victim may visit frequently. This is especially true if their business makes use of well-known SaaS applications.

Even more customisation options are available in certain phishing kits, which will even collect data from social media accounts on the phisher's behalf.

Difference Between Spear Phishing And Phishing

The method used to conduct spear phishing differs from phishing. Spear phishing is a specific and tailored form of phishing. Spear phishing schemes and phishing have comparable objectives. As opposed to phishing, which sends out hundreds of emails in the hopes that a few recipients will fall for it, spear phishing is very specifically targeted.

Emails sent specifically to the victim or their company are used by spear phishers to target specific people. Limiting their scope makes it simpler for fraudsters to include personal information, such as a first name and work position, raising the likelihood that the victim would consider the email to be authentic.

Phishing emails employ a generalized strategy and are sent as mass emails in the aim of deceiving at least one recipient into divulging private information. In contrast to spear phishing emails, these phishing emails often lack personal information and are poorly crafted.

It is simpler for receivers to resist being duped due to the nature of mass phishing emails. However, as we all know, a lot of people have a tendency to open email attachments without fully double-checking the email address of the sender before responding.

In order to emphasize how important it is to be cyber-aware of emails and the inbox, cyber security awareness training and ongoing education are essential.

Also Read | What is Spoofing?

How To Prevent Spear Phishing?

Spear Phishing can be prevented by the following steps:

Prevent Spear Phishing

Inform your staff about spear phishing. Utilize free spear phishing simulation tools to educate yourself and recognise the threats.

To keep spear phishing and social engineering concerns at the forefront of employees' minds, use platforms for phishing simulation training and proven security awareness training. Make internal cyber security heroes who are dedicated to maintaining your company's online safety.

Remind your security executives and cyber security heroes to routinely check on employee understanding of spear phishing using phishing simulation tools. Utilize phishing microlearning modules to impart knowledge, provide training, and alter behaviour.

Continually spread the word through campaigns and communications regarding social engineering, spear phishing, and cyber security. This additional reinforcement can take the shape of implementing strict password requirements and informing staff members of the dangers that might be present in emails, URLs, and attachments.

Establish network access policies that restrict the usage of personal devices and the sharing of information outside of your company's network.

Ascertain that all programmes, operating systems, network resources, and internal software are current and secure. Software for spam and virus detection should be installed.

Consolidate your business culture by integrating project management, support, training, and awareness campaigns for cyber security.

Also Read | Cybercrime: Definition, Examples, Types and Impact

In the end, the greatest defense against spear phishing is to just have a vigilant mindset. Trusted contacts who have had their email accounts stolen or cloned frequently use them to spread phishing attacks.

Every phishing attempt takes advantage of our want to trust people and think that most people are nice, and we must put that desire on hold, at least during work hours.

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What is Spear Phishing and How does it Work?

What is Spear Phishing?

How Spear Phishing Works?

Spear Phishing and Whaling

What Tools Help With Spear Phishing?

Difference Between Spear Phishing And Phishing

How To Prevent Spear Phishing?

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