Phishing Is A Social Engineering Luring Technique

Phishing is an attempt to acquire personal information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through an electronic communication. [ Compl. ¶ 28, ECF No. 1.]

Sheng et al. (2010) conducted a role play survey among over a thousand online respondents to study both the relationship between demographics and susceptibility to phishing and the effectiveness of anti-phishing education. This study analyzed demographics of people who fall prey to phishing attacks. The authors used an online survey and found that women were more likely to fall for phishing scams than men, further, people aged 18-25 were found to be more likely to be the victim of a phishing attack as compared to the general public.

Since our sponsor university is located in Massachusetts, where there is no direct single state law on anti-phishing. It is important to understand legal phishing definition, and laws applicable if University XYZ faces any phishing attack. In this section, apart from explaining federal statute and related punishment for phishing attack, details are given on government agencies that University XYZ can approach for phishing attack investigation.

My paper focuses on a security assessment of Quality Web Design (QWD), which is a very successful company that is well-known for its magnificent and appealing websites; they work

Identity theft is one of the growing crimes in the United States due to the fact people do not know how to properly protect themselves against it. Criminals use different methods to acquire the information necessary to steal someone’s identity. Some of the techniques used to commit identity theft are; stealing wallets, acquiring bank information or pilfering through trash to find documents containing PII (FBI, n.d.). Nowadays criminals are able to steal people’s identity using different procedures over the internet without having to compromise their identity. Some of the methods are social engineering, phishing, sending spam messages and malware (OLI, 2013). Criminals use these methods because with the use of technology, identity theft could be accomplished anonymously and without much effort. Also because people lower their guard about securing their personally identifiable information when using the internet, especially when using social networks, they become easy targets to

Bank of America is a multinational banking institute and one of the most trusted in the banking industry. This organizations sole purpose is to protect the customer’s confidentiality and assets by ensuring that data protection is the number one priority; however any organization when holding personal information can be a victim of data breach and BoA is not exempt. One of the largest risks BoA faces today is Mobile Banking. This consumer convenience is used by fifty percent of smart phone owners (Finney, 2014). Phishing is also threat to the banking industry; this strategy by hackers allows the extraction of consumer passwords and other sensitive information. Hackers targeting banking institution employees with convincing e-mails that fool them into clicking on malicious links-which ultimately compromise their credentials or

The tendency of internet users to instantly assume website credibility, provides even the most unskilled hackers an opportunity to gain unauthorized access to someone’s computer in the world today. Often, malicious or ill-intended websites are designed in such as way that visitors perceive as trustworthy, but in the background are set up as platforms for phishing or to intentionally antagonizing users to get a reaction, also known as internet “trolling”. To the untrained user, the signs of a hoax website are often unclear. However, SomaliCruises.com, a website advertising cruises to Somalia in hopes of being hijacked and fighting Somalian pirates, provides an excellent case study of what a hoax website might look like. Specifically, Somali Cruises uses precise formatting and a friendly tone to make a good initial impression, but reveals its status as a hoax through subtle elements like sketchy advertisements,

Phishing scams are typically fraud email messages appearing to come from legitimate enterprises (e.g., your university, your Internet service provider, your bank). These messages usually direct you to a spoofed website or otherwise get you to divulge private information (e.g., passphrase, credit card, or other account updates). The criminals then use this private information to commit identity theft.

The act of tricking individuals into divulging their sensitive information and using it for malicious purposes is not new. Social engineering attacks have occurred on the internet throughout its existence. Before widespread use of the internet, criminals used the telephone to pose as a trusted agent to acquire information. The term “phishing” has origins in the mid-1990s, when it was used to describe the acquisition of internet service provider (ISP) account information. However, today the term has evolved to encompass a variety of attacks that target personal information.

The keys to prevention and detection of social engineering attacks should be included in the organizations security policy. Social engineering attacks require the same approach and security posture as another type of attacks on an organizations information and data. The organization must identify its assets, turn up span mail features, clarify the line between work and personal, develop effective access management, and conduct training and awareness of

Being touted as the 'new era of cyber crime', advanced phishing attacks recently were responsible for stealing as much as $1 billion from over 100 banks worldwide. [1] In an attack that took place in the shadows of the networks of their victims over more than 2 years, this display of how dangerous these phishing techniques are becomes very apparent. In previous years, it was always thought that the easiest way for a hacker to steal would be for them to go after the customers directly. However, as became apparent in this attack, hackers have become much more resourceful at how they get access to the banking information they desire.

Phishing is a kind of social engineering attack in which criminals use spoofed emails to trick people into sharing sensitive information or installing malware on their computers. Victims perceive these emails as associated with a trusted brand, while in reality they are the work of con artists. Rather than directly targeting the systems people use, phishing attacks target the people using those systems. Phishing cleverly circumvents the vast majority of an organization's security measures. It doesn't matter how many firewalls, encryption software, certificates, and two-factor authentication mechanisms an organization has if the person behind the keyboard falls for a phish. On the surface, phishing attacks may seem to be a variant of spam.

Email phishing, one scheme of internet scamming, is a problematic issue in society as it causes millions of people to fall victim to identity theft and financial exploit. Acts such as this could not be more apparent at The University of Alabama during its 2013-2014 school term, when an email headlined “New Year Upgrading” surfaced its way into the inboxes of UA students. In his article “University OIT warns of phishing scams” for The Crimson White, author Josh Sigler cautions students of The University of Alabama to be wary of false advertisement and to refrain from providing personal information, if uncertain. Sigler attests why UA students should be as alert as possible of online scams by appointing advice from a specialist, unveiling past

The increasing volume and sophistication of cyber security threats including targeted data theft, phishing scams and other online vulnerabilities demand that we remain vigilant about securing our systems and information.

As indicated, algorithm tools are different and can be presented in different modes which are in this context referred to as anti-phishing tools. The common examples today are: