10 Techniques Hackers Use to Carry Out Phishing Scams

Each day hackers advance in ways of stealing data and personal information. It’s therefore essential to be up to date with their latest tricks and safeguard that treasured information from the hackers.  As your Financial Advisor, let me take you through 10 techniques on how fraudsters can steal your classified personal details;

1. Mass Emailing

The trick involves sending millions of emails to random recipients purposefully to lure them into an act. The sender assumes a different identity like of a trusted source and thus manages to attract receivers to click into a given website.

Alternatively, it can be to trick you into downloading and installing a given malware like key logger, spyware, Trojan, or ransomware to your computer. The emails are skillfully crafted and thus hard to detect.

2. Spear Phishing

It’s the type of phishing that employs deceptive emails to target a few high ranked officials or companies.  The fraudsters spend time in gathering related data on the recipient for example from compromised emails.  The attacker then uses the stolen and the publicly gathered information to craft the personalized email to trick and get valuable data about their target.

3. Session Hijacking

It’s also termed as cookie hijacking. Here, the attacker steals cookies through vulnerable connections and thus gains access to classified data in web servers. The tricked individual then unknowingly, enters the valuable information onto an imposter website, set up by the hacker. HTTP, sites are most susceptible to cookie hijacking.

4. Content Injection

It’s also termed as content spoofing. The attacker deceives you, the user, into leaving a legitimate site and clicking on a non-trusted website. By changing the content of the legitimate site and presenting a lookalike page, fraudsters trap their targets. The victim then enters the personal information on the dubious site falls to the trick. 

5. Web-Based Delivery (Man-in-the-Middle)

The attack involves snooping into an online live conversation and manipulating the information for a fraudulent reason.  Unsecured Wi-Fi is susceptible to man in the middle attacks. 

6. Phishing Through Search Engines

An attacker influences the organic search results of their target to include the fraudulent site. The deceitful site then offers the hard to ignore offer on a product or service. The attacker then steals personal information, for example, the credit card from the victim. 

7. Link Manipulation

In this technique, the targeted individual receives an email with a link that looks legitimate but redirects to a look-alike malicious website.  When you hover over such an address, you will see the real URL where you are to be redirected.

8. Malvertising

The attack termed as “Malicious Advertising” involves inserting malicious-laden advertisements into legitimate online Webpages.  The malicious-loaded ads download unwanted content to your computer. The typical tricks used by malicious advertising employs flash and Adobe PDF.

9. Vishing (Voice Phishing)

Through voice phishing, the attacker assumes a fake identity and calls his target. The pretext for the call could be to resolve a financial or security situation. The recipient is then directed to call another number for further details. When the victim dials the provided number to speak to a representative, he is lured into revealing the confidential information. For instance, the victim might be required to enter her account or PIN.

10. SMiShing (SMS Phishing)

The practice involves phishing through cell phone messaging service. The attacker sends the SMiShing text to trick you to disclose the confidential information through the phishing website link. Alternatively, the attacker can also trick you into installing malware on your mobile phone. 

Conclusion

Phishing scams are high today and there are no signs for going down anytime soon. To protect yourself and your business from being a victim, it’s essential to know all the techniques used by cyber-criminals. Unless you are fully informed, you can find yourself in the hands of these hackers and therefore losing thousands of dollars. If you want to safeguard your business from phishing attacks, invest in security tools, and teach your employees how to detect email scams.