The Five Most Common Phishing Lures

With the record number of data breaches during 2016, we can pretty safely say that most of the breaches came about because someone clicked on a phishing email.

The most frequent phishing emails usually have five types of lures.

First, they may include an invoice attachment. Money is the most common lure as they account for almost half of all phishing emails.

Second, the lure of a scanned document. Often they are word documents. These often install malware.

Third, a shipping document. Many of these use stolen branding to appear to be legitimate. Some purport to be directly from the vendor.

Fourth, an attached list from someone claiming to be wanting to place an order.

And fifth, an attachment to verify an order. This could be from a fake bank or other business. The lure with these is to get the user to confirm an electronic or online payment intended for the recipient after they verify the data in the attachment.

These types of email scams are intended to either install malware that will steal personal info or steal usernames and passwords.

Stay safe and learn to recognize phishing emails.

Source: SCMagazine