Why Every Business Needs Cybersecurity Training for Employees—And How to Get Started

With phishing being one of the most common types of cyberthreats, you must get educated on the different types of phishing attacks. Here’s a brief overview so you can get a better understanding of phishing:

• Phishing: The most common attack where attackers send mass emails to a large number of users with a message designed to capture curiosity or fear and get them to click on something.
• Spear Phishing: Spear phishing is a more involved phishing attack that uses social engineering and research to create a very plausible message for one or a small number of individuals.
• Impersonation: In an impersonation, hackers research a company’s officers and send a targeted message seemingly from that leader requesting a specific action be taken.
• Zero-Day Attacks: In this attack, hackers exploit a software’s security loophole for which no patch has been released yet (or unpatched machines).
• Drive-By Hack Attacks: A drive-by attack uses automated software that booby-traps a website to deploy malicious code to any user accessing that site.
• Man-in-the-Middle Attack: In a MITM attack, an attacker secretly intercepts and relays messages between two parties who believe they are communicating directly with each other in order to control the conversation.
• Macro-Based Malware: This includes phishing, infected files on a USB stick, links in an email, and more that contains macros intended to run when opened.
• Crypto-Ransomware: This attack encrypts files on a computer and restricts access, then demands that the user pay a ransom to remove the restriction.
• Malvertising: This attack involves injecting malicious or malware-laden advertisements into legitimate online advertising networks and webpages.
• Bespoke Attacks: In this attack, hackers code malware specifically designed to exploit a specific security hole at a targeted company.