Unconventional Methods In Preventing Spear Phishing

By Author: eccuni
Total Articles: 211
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Recently, Epsilon one of the leading Emails marketing service provider had been a victim of theft and what was stolen was the names and also Email addresses stored in Epsilon's server. Also, Sony suffered the same fate as Epsilon, which lost 77 million Email addresses, names as well as identifiable informations. Because of these events, the importance of education and also improved technological innovations are the solution against the threats of online phishing.
Of the 2,500 important corporate clients of Epsilon, billions of emails are sent by Epsilon each year; however, Epsilon has disclosed important information last March that information from 50 of their clients has been compromised. The stolen informations are the mailing lists of companies like, Citibank, JPMorgan, Capitol One and other large and reputable financial institutions and also retail sectors. Sony’s millions of accounts have been compromised too; the personal information and credit card information of players from Sony's popular games like Everquest were stolen.
Because of these events, criminals have information on their hand that can be ...
... used for online phishing that are aimed at the customers of the companies. Cyber criminals can address their victims by using their name which makes the Email less suspicious, compared to other vague salutations. Clients would believe the Email easily if they were addressed with their names, but they could be come victims of spear phishing attacks. So how to mitigate this risk; one could create a new Email address, but this method is impractical to some and it doesn't prevent any future online phishing attacks. A masters degree in information security would help out a lot too.
Education is the most common solution against online phishing or any technological revisions of old confidence tricks made by cyber criminals. And without a doubt, technological solutions can be used to build protection against these threats. However, detecting malware attacks have become more difficult for most security software; malware is an ever changing threat and has more coverage. Because of this, many industries have taken small steps against online phishing as well as creating tools to detect this threat. Yet, there are other tools such as the latest Firefox, which alerts internet users regarding the website they are going to view – whether they host malware or not. And some industries have built-in phishing detection tools on their systems to provide more protection.
Unfortunately, the threat against online phishing or spear phishing can be best prevented only by good education, specifically one who has ms in information security. These professionals who have a masters degree in information security can easily detect phishing threats with these simple strategies.
Be Wary before you Click
Sometimes attackers tend to confuse their victims with domain names that are confusing; there are times they make use of well known names in their domain names or even make use third level domain to imply that they are associated with a known organization. They even mask their URL with HTML tags but in most browsers, we can easily know the destination of the URL if we hover the mouse over the link. With this we can check the search engine regarding the URL and see if they are real or not.
Never Give Away your Info
Be skeptic about any request for information like credit cards, social security numbers and bank accounts, because reputable institutions would never request these informations on the internet. And they maintain strict policies regarding Email communications they have with their clients. If the Email is not trustworthy and if it sounds fraudulent then you should never give any sensitive information. A person who has a masters degree information security can easily detect these.
Watch Out for Attachments
Phishing attacks not only rely on malicious mails and websites, because worms can be used in phishing attempts, so it is best to be wary of attachments. Never click on any unexpected attachment, even if it's from a said trusted source; better yet delete it in case you forget why you did not open it. Attachments like executable files can be malware and PDFs or even HTMLs can have malicious intent aimed at the victim.
Use the Phone
Malicious and suspicious Emails from companies you have relations with could be illegitimate, so it would be better to phone them first. If the company really lost your information then their customer support would surely know about it. Call them first, and then ask regarding the Email you have just received before doing anything.
These recommendations may be basic, but it would be surprising to you if you know how effective they are. Indeed, there are new security methods in detecting and preventing online phishing threats, but it wouldn't be bad to educate ourselves first in preventing this phishing problem.

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