What is spear phishing? It is the use of a fake email or a fake website to carry out the malicious activities. So it is not any harmful computer-based activities but it can harm your financial and personal data.

The first stage of spear phishing attack is that an individual interested in the victim’s sensitive information, technology and current technological breakthroughs tries to initiate contact with the company. One important thing to consider here is that the company must be using secure web based technologies such as SSL for data transmission. These technologies make it more difficult for attackers to hack into the company.

Some companies today have taken advantage of the fact that their target market is more aggressive and that makes them prone to this type of cybercrime, and they have taken advantage of the fact that many of them conduct online phishing campaigns each day. They use methods such as online advertising campaigns or even by producing and marketing email campaigns that include the victims’ personal and financial data, such as mailing lists, credit card information, or social security numbers.

Anatomy of a Spearphishing Attack

These companies pay people to sign up and create mailing lists to obtain personal and credit card information, sometimes they use the stolen credit card information for their own benefit. This way, they may offer free or low-cost products or services to the recipients of the mails. If these companies ask for payment for these goods and services, the person signing up for the service will be at great risk of identity theft.

How is spear phishing carried out? These companies send emails to the targeted email address inviting the person to check out their product or service. However, the message that the company sends to the person is not exactly what is spear phishing.

Sometimes, the person will get the mails from people who ask them to update their mailing list so that they can continue to receive the company’s confidential data. But, the company will ask for money or membership fees to verify and confirm the subscription to the mailing list. Once this confirmation is done, the messages will include links on the web pages of the mailers that offer membership to certain sites.

For instance, one site may offer a “techie” membership where it gives information and guides to overcoming the Internet frauds. When the person checks out the site, they will find that the site offers spyware applications and other add-ons that can give the attacker easy access to the victim’s PC, documents, photos, and so on. The attacker can obtain credit card numbers, banking information, and so on.

Once these services and websites are purchased, they are sometimes hosted by email service providers. The victim may never find the malicious link on the mailers’ pages because he/she will delete them after reading the e-mails that you send them. Usually, most victims will never know that they are getting attacked with this method.

So, what is spear phishing carried out in the third stage? The attacker would send another mail to the victim, telling him/her to click on a link in the email, or he/she could leave a new chat window that would provide the opportunity to log into another account on the attacker’s website and to download the malware programs.

What is spear phishing, when done properly, is a simple and effective method of performing online crimes. There are several online companies that offer services that enable people to use this method of attacks to carry out their crimes.

Many people say that one of the most common and most popular phrase when describing phishing is, “you get what you pay for”. In this case, you are the one who pays to perform a scam by giving out personal and sensitive information or you might also get a huge risk of identity theft if you give out your credit card information. What is spear phishing?

Be very cautious about these techniques because it may be very dangerous. If you have any doubts or concerns about the sender’s intentions, take the appropriate steps to confront and find out how it really works. !