Phishing Attacks are Evolving: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Company Safe

Andrew Douthwaite

January 17, 2022

Last updated August 19, 2022

Summary:

  • Phishing is a form of social engineering where the attacker impersonates a trusted party for the purpose of gaining access to sensitive information like login credentials, personal information, or payment card data.
  • A company with 5000 employees will receive an average of 14,400 phishing emails each year—not including the ones caught by spam filters.
  • Phishing tactics are becoming more advanced over time, and phishing attacks are most common during the holiday season, when consumers often face increased stress levels.
  • SMS phishing scams are on the rise, so it’s vital to use caution if you recieve texts from a sender you don’t recognize.
  • Cybersecurity training for employees and visibility scanning are two essential ways to prevent and combat phishing scams. VirtualArmor can provide both of these services.

Phishing scams tend to peak during and around the winter holiday season, catching individuals and businesses alike unprepared. To help ensure you and your team have the information you need to identify and avoid these scams, we sat down with one of our VirtualArmour cybersecurity engineers to learn more about this common cybersecurity threat.

If you are currently experiencing, or have recently experienced, a cybersecurity incident, please contact our team for immediate assistance and consider reviewing our educational article: Hacked? Here’s What to Know (and What to Do Next). Our team can help you fend off the attack, identify the root cause of the issue, and create an actionable, comprehensive plan to help mitigate or even avoid further damage.

photo of a credit card with a fishing hooks in it, symbolizing how people use phising to steal credit card information

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a type of social engineering typically used to steal user data such as login credentials, personally identifiable information (PII), or payment card information. This type of cyber attack involves a threat actor masquerading as a trusted party (such as your bank) in order to trick you into opening an email, text message, instant message, or other electronic message and inadvertently handing over sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (such as your full name, birth date, or social insurance number) or payment information (such as your credit card number). 

Phishing attacks pose a serious threat at both the personal and corporate levels. Though most email spam filters are able to stop the most egregious attempts at phishing, even the best filters and firewalls aren’t able to catch everything. Phishing scams continue to evolve, and the sheer number of phishing emails alone is staggering. Research into the volume of email, spam, and malicious attachments and URLs directed at companies found that a company with 5000 employees will still have an average of 14,400 phishing emails arrive in employee inboxes each year, and those are just the emails that were savvy enough to get past the spam filter. 

With so many emails alone slipping past our defenses, employee training on how to spot and report potential phishing scams is key. However, many threat actors are changing tactics and moving away from email and towards other forms of electronic communication.

Phishing Tactics Have Evolved

When many of us think of phishing emails, we likely still picture some scammer pretending to be a fabulously wealthy prince from some faraway land promising riches in return to helping them covertly move money out of their home country (a common ruse referred to as an advance-fee scam).

The advanced-fee scam is a classic ruse that involves the threat actor asking you to help them by either transferring money to the target (purportedly for “safekeeping” or to evade authorities) while also asking you to pay a fee to help move the money with the promise that they will both send you money to cover the advanced payment and reward you handsomely for your cooperation.

Though this elaborate ruse has become cliche even outside of cybersecurity circles, unfortunately, many individuals and companies still fall for this and similar advance fee scams. A recent CNBC article found that these advanced fee scams still net cybercriminals well over $700,000 USD per year.

Why Do Phishing Scams Peak Around the Holiday Season?

Phishing campaigns typically soar in popularity over the holiday season in an attempt to prey on festive (and often frazzled) shoppers using increasingly sophisticated phishing scams. 

However, it isn’t just holiday shoppers that fall for these campaigns; many businesses and other organizations of all sizes continue to fall victim to these types of attacks.

One common example of a popular business-targeted phishing scam involves sending the target an email with a domain that appears to link to the company website and contain innocuous information (such as a festive meal menu with a .doc file extension, paired with an email asking the employee to please indicate their meal preference and dietary restrictions for the company party). However, though the email appears legitimate at first glance, a red flag such as a misspelled domain (for example, virtaularmour.com’ rather than ‘virtualarmor.com’, note the transposed ‘u’ and ‘a’) indicates that this email is likely malicious and should be both flagged as spam and reported to your company’s IT or cybersecurity team.

“Smishing” (SMS Phishing) Scams Are On the Rise

Though these types of scams tend to peak around the holiday season, they are still common year-round. The fake delivery text is a new form of this age-old scam that has been making the rounds and is rapidly becoming one of the most common formats for smishing scams. 

One theory behind the rise in this particular style of phishing scam is the increase in lockdowns worldwide, prompting a rise in online shopping, particularly during the holiday period. Before clicking on any links in a suspicious text message, it is critical to verify whether the text message is legitimate (such as by calling your local post office or delivery depot to verify if there really is a parcel waiting for you).

How to Recognize (& Avoid Falling Prey To) a Smishing Attack

If you receive a suspicious text that may be part of a smishing scam, there are a few steps you can take to help avoid falling prey: 

  1. Never respond to a potentially suspicious text message. If a response appears to be necessary, respond via a verified official channel (such as calling your delivery company or local post office directly).
  2. Never click on any links or phone numbers sent from a user you don’t recognize.
  3. Never share any payment information or personally identifiable information, such as your social security number, birth date, or full name. 
  4. Report any messages that appear suspicious to the relevant authority.
    1. In the United Kingdom, reports can be filed with the National Cyber Security Centre here.
    2. In the United States, reports can be filed with the FCC here and FTC here.

A common example of a scam asking for payment information is a scammer posing as your bank and asking you to update your account information (usually under threat of being locked out of your accounts or some other undesirable outcome). In this case, you should contact your bank immediately via an official channel (most banks print a toll-free number on the back of their credit or debit cards or somewhere on your bank statement) and independently verify that your information requires updating. This not only helps you avoid falling victim to a potential phishing scam but also alerts your bank so they can warn other customers about the scam so they can avoid falling prey as well.

laptop screen with phishing tactics being used on an unsuspecting user

Awareness is Critical

Education and awareness are a cornerstone of any solid cybersecurity strategy. By educating yourself and others about common scams and red flags to look for, you can help reduce the chance someone falls victim. Individual scams are often short-lived, so you need to act quickly; Verizon reports that 50% of scam targets open emails and click on phishing links within an hour of receiving a suspicious email.  

Investing in employee cybersecurity training is vital. When it comes to scams, your employees are one of your first lines of defense, which is why all employees, from the summer intern up to the CEO, should undergo regular cybersecurity training. To help set everyone up for success, you should also include cybersecurity training as part of your company’s onboarding process. 

Vulnerability Scanning Offers Total Visibility Into Your Infrastructure

You can’t defend yourself against cybersecurity threats if you don’t know they exist. Vulnerability scanning helps ensure that no threat makes its way past your defenses by providing detailed information on threat intelligence, device health, threat mapping, and support ticketing. Being able to view all traffic on your network at all times is critical for spotting suspicious activities, so you can respond swiftly and effectively to safeguard both your data and your organization should a threat actor sneak past your defenses. 

Social Engineering Takes Many Forms

Many of these attacks depend on social engineering. Social engineering involves manipulating potential victims into revealing personally identifiable information and can be used to access either personal or organizational accounts. Social engineering attacks typically rely on consistent communication between the attacker and the target and frequently take the form of text messages, instant messages, or emails. 

As COVID-19 continues to force workers to trade their desks at work for their kitchen tables, spare rooms, and home offices, attacks of this nature are becoming more frequent and more effective. This, combined with more mundane but still frustrating events such as a purportedly missed delivery (which you can conveniently reschedule by clicking on this completely legitimate link), has created an ideal environment for threats like phishing scams to flourish. 

Worried About Phishing Scams? VirtualArmour is Here to Help

Not everyone is a cybersecurity expert, and that’s okay. VirtualArmour is full of experts like the cybersecurity engineer who helped us write this educational article. Whether you need help drafting a cybersecurity strategy, are looking for someone to monitor your network 24/7/365 for suspicious activities, or are looking to bolster your internal IT or cybersecurity team, our team is here to help. For more information, or to start improving your organization’s cybersecurity posture, please contact our team today.

About the Author

Kurt Pritchard is a SOC Engineer at VirtualArmour, you can learn more about him on his LinkedIn.

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