Technology has a lot of positive impacts on the world, but many people have found ways to mess that up. One big way would be phishing; which is a social engineering attack that happens through emails, text and instant messages. The phisher will try to get information on the victim's (which can be anybody) credentials for logins, their credit card numbers, and many other possible data. Some phishing techniques can include;
1) Email phishing scams: which can target many random people/enterprises at a time
2) Spear phishing: this technique will only target one person/enterprise at a time.
Phishing first started around 1995, but did not become popular until ten years later. An interesting fact to know about phishing history happened in 2004. In 2004, the first lawsuit was filed for creating an imitation of a website ("America Online") by a teenager from California. This teenager was able to get credit card numbers by the people he tricked and withdrew money from all their accounts.
A phisher working on getting a victim's information
The FBI have said that phishing is the biggest email attack method/vector hackers use. While the IBM says phishing is the second biggest kind of data breach. This is also the most expensive for the victims involved; $4.91 million.
It has been stated that phishing has become more sophisticated and is also growing. For example, phishers have started to use it more during tax season and shopping deals. There have been increases throughout the past two years in phishing attacks;
1) a 61% increase in phishing attack rates (which was more than 255 million attacks)
2) and a 50% mobile device use for attacks (scams and credential theft on the top of the payload list).
Make sure to be careful with your emails, texts, and calls
References:
Back when I used to be a Computer Science major, one of the first things they taught us about was phishing. It's crazy how easy it is to pull off and do it successfully. Senior citizens are actually at a much greater risk of falling for phishing because they don't know how to tell a trusted, verified email or phone call from a bad one. Crazy stuff.
Scamming or phishing back then was easier than it was now these days, although I will say they have gotten clever, anyone can make the mistake of getting scammed with the slightest carelessness. However, I think back then it was easier to get scammed because we were adapting to technology so it was easier to believe anything on the internet. Now I think it's gotten easier to avoid phishing for the most part, and mostly due to word of mouth on the latest scams being run.
My nana falls victim to phishing attempts all of the time! I also had no idea it had been around for two decades. People need to stop scamming other people!
I had no idea phishing has been around for nearly two decades—though I guess there are always people looking to exploit others (whomp whomp). Thanks for sharing this helpful info!
You cannot open your email without something 'fishy' showing up in your inbox. These emails can look like they are from legitimate sources, its amazing how much information they have on you.