Phishing vs. spear phishing: While most phishing campaigns send mass emails to as many people as possible, spear phishing is targeted. Spear phishing attacks a specific person or organization, often with content that is tailor made for the victim or victims. It requires pre-attack reconnaissance to uncover names, job titles, email addresses, and the like. The hackers scour the Internet to match up this information with other researched knowledge about the target's colleagues, along with the names and professional relationships of key employees in their organizations. With this, the phisher crafts a believable email.
For instance, a fraudster might spear phish an employee whose responsibilities include the ability to authorize payments. The email purports to be from an executive in the organization, commanding the employee to send a substantial payment either to the exec or to a company vendor (when in fact, the malicious payment link sends it to the attacker).
“A verbose phishing email from someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince is one of the Internet's earliest and longest-running scams.”
For instance, a fraudster might spear phish an employee whose responsibilities include the ability to authorize payments. The email purports to be from an executive in the organization, commanding the employee to send a substantial payment either to the exec or to a company vendor (when in fact, the malicious payment link sends it to the attacker).
“A verbose phishing email from someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince is one of the Internet's earliest and longest-running scams.”