From the course: Cybersecurity Awareness: Phishing Attacks

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Getting specific with targeted phishing attacks

Getting specific with targeted phishing attacks

From the course: Cybersecurity Awareness: Phishing Attacks

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Getting specific with targeted phishing attacks

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- Years ago while working in tech support, I received a call from someone claiming to be a high level executive at my company. The caller requested to speak with another top executive and demonstrated knowledge that nearly persuaded me to transfer the call. However, at the last moment, I decided to verify with the intended recipient. To my surprise, I discovered the executive the scammer was impersonating, was actually in a meeting with the person they were trying to reach. This was a failed wailing attack. A wailing attack is a type of spearfishing or targeted attack where the victim is always a high level executive of an organization. There are also spear phishing attacks which focus on specific people or businesses. In these types of situations, the attacker takes their time to gather information on the targets to build a detailed and convincing profile. So how do cyber criminals do their research? They use OSINT, open source intelligence. This involves collecting and analyzing…

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