Phishing attack meaning is a type of cyber attack where a malicious actor poses as a reputable entity or business in order to deceive people and collect their sensitive information - such as credit card details, usernames, passwords etc.
Oftentimes, phishing attacks make use of fraudulent emails that convince the user to enter sensitive information into a fraudulent website. These emails are usually requesting the user to reset his password or to confirm his credit card information, leading to a fake website that looks very similar to the original one. As expected, phishing attacks also happen within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, where malicious actors try to steal Bitcoin or other assets from users.
Types of phishing
Now that we know phishing attack meaning, let us take a look at the different types of phishing. There are many types of phishing attacks, but we will take a look at some of the most common ones here.
Clone phishing: an attacker will use a previously sent, legitimate email and copy its contents into a similar one containing a link to a malicious site. The attacker might then claim that this is an updated or new link, maybe stating that the old one has expired.
Spear phishing: this type of attack is focused on one person or institution - usually recognized by others. A spear attack is more sophisticated than other phishing types because it is profiled. This means that the attacker first collects information about the victim (eg. names of friends or family members) and then based on this data constructs a message whose main task is to convince the victim to visit a malicious website or download a malicious file.
Pharming: an attacker will poison a DNS record which, in practice, will redirect visitors of a legitimate website to a fraudulent one that the attacker has made beforehand. This is perhaps the most dangerous of the attacks because DNS records are not within the user's control, thus making the user helpless to defend against.
Email Spoofing: Phishing emails typically spoof communications from legitimate companies or people. Phishing emails may present unknowing victims with links to malicious sites, where attackers collect login credentials and PII using cleverly disguised login pages. The pages may contain trojans, keyloggers, and other malicious scripts that steal personal information.
How to protect yourself?
First and foremost, the best way is to be wary and think critically about the emails you receive. Check if you were expecting an email from this sender, or if the sender is a legitimate source. You can also check the content: you may type part of the content (or the sender’s email address) on a search engine in order to check if there is any record of phishing attacks that used that specific mETHod.
When dealing with a suspicious website, check the URL. Hover over the link, without clicking it, to check if it starts with HTTPS and not just HTTP. Note, however, that this alone is not a guarantee that the site is legitimate. Check URLs closely for misspellings, unusual characters, and other irregularities.
Most importantly, when dealing with cryptocurrencies, do not ever share your private keys. Never give out the private key to your Bitcoin wallet, and be vigilant in determining if the product and seller you are about to give any cryptocurrency to is legitimate. The difference in dealing with crypto as opposed to a credit card is that there is no central authority to dispute a charge if you never received the good or service that was agreed upon. This is why one must be especially careful when dealing with cryptocurrency transactions.
As phishing techniques evolve over time, we must be extra vigilant and always expect the worst when dealing with sensitive information.
In Conclusion
Phishing attack meaning is a type of cyber attack involving malicious actors who pose as reputable entities to extract sensitive information from users. To prevent falling victim to such attacks, we need to do our research on common phishing attacks and protect ourselves accordingly.
