What is a Phishing Attack?
Phishing is another type of cyber attack. Phishing got its name from “phish” meaning fish. It’s a common phenomenon to put bait for the fish to get trapped. Similarly, phishing works. It is an unethical way to dupe the user or victim to click on harmful sites. The attacker crafts the harmful site in such a way that the victim feels it to be an authentic site, thus falling prey to it. The most common mode of phishing is by sending spam emails that appear to be authentic and thus, taking away all credentials from the victim. The main motive of the attacker behind phishing is to gain confidential information like:
- Password
- Credit card details
- Social security numbers
- Date of birth
The attacker uses this information to further target the user impersonate the user and cause data theft. The most common type of phishing attack happens through email. Phishing victims are tricked into revealing information that they think should be kept private. The original logo of the email is used to make the user believe that it is indeed the original email. But if we carefully look into the details, we will find that the URL or web address is not authentic. Let’s understand this concept with the help of an example:
In this example, most people believe it’s YouTube just by looking at the red icon. So, thinking of YouTube as a secure platform, the users click on the extension without being suspicious about it. But if we look carefully, we can see the URL is supertube.com and not youtube.com. Secondly, YouTube never asks to add extensions for watching any video. The third thing is the extension name itself is weird enough to raise doubt about its credibility.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a form of online fraud in which hackers attempt to get your private information such as passwords, credit cards, or bank account data. This is usually done by sending false emails or messages that appear to be from trusted sources like banks or well-known websites. They aim to convince you so that they can manage to have your information and use it as a fraudster. Always ensure that you are certain about whom you are dealing with before you provide any information.
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