Phishing
PopCykol Tip
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick someone into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious software on the victim’s infrastructure like ransomware.
What is Phishing?
Everyone has had an experience with phishing. At first, it’s hard to recognize a phishing email, phishing link, or a suspicious attachment. However, once you know the signs of a phishing attack, you are less likely to click on something suspicious.
Who gets phished?
What happens to the person’s data once they’re phished?
Phishing enables a criminal to access your banking and social accounts to steal your identity. It can compromise your data and even lock you out of your accounts. Ransomware can be implemented, and you may have to pay money (or pay in cryptocurrency) for your data to be decrypted and unlocked.
With more children online for school, gaming, and participating in virtual reality, they are prone to giving out information than they should and also receiving scam communications via phone, email, and text messages with malicious links and attachments.
How can Phishing impact children’s information?
A child may receive a phishing communication via email or text on their phone. The message could appear to come from a gaming platform like Xbox or Roblox offering a cheat code or coupon. All a child would have to do is click and enter their username and password on the platform and then the sender would then steal information and use it for their own purpose.
Hackers often use spoofing to fake the sender’s email address.
Here’s an example of phishing
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How can you avoid being phished?
1. Ensure your computer and network is updated and patched with the most current updates
from the computer vendor.
2. Avoid clicking on links when you’re not sure of the sender.
3. Even if the sender is a trusted person, are you expecting a message, text, or email from
them?
4. Type in the whole website in your browser instead of clicking it.
5. You can purchase filters that will reduce spam mail that have phishing links.
6. Phishing emails are getting more sophisticated and professional looking, however, are you
expecting a message from the sender? Are they creating a sense of urgency?
How can I check if my email or phone number has been compromised?
Visit the site: haveibeenpwned.com to check.