phishing vs pharming

What is Vishing, Smishing, Pharming, and Whaling

What is Vishing, Smishing, Pharming, and Whaling

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Vishing

Vishing is also phishing. It uses voice VoIP communication technology for fraud—the criminals spoof calls from legitimate sources using voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

The victim can receive a recorded message that appears legitimate. Vishing works just like phishing, but it does not always occur over the Internet and is carried out using voice technology. Vishing attacks also use voice emails, landlines, and telephones.

It is not easy for authorities to trace vishing, especially when the criminals use VoIP. Criminals aim to get credit card numbers or other information to steal the victim’s identity. Vishing takes advantage of the fact that people trust the telephone network.

Smishing

Smishing is Short Message Service Phishing. It uses text messaging on cellular phones. Criminals masquerade as a legitimate source to gain the trust of the victim. It is an attack in which the user is tricked into downloading a Trojan horse, virus, or other malware into his cellular phone or other mobile devices.

Pharming

Pharming is a scamming practice in which the impression of a legitimate website to mislead users into entering their credentials. It redirects victims to a fake website that appears to be official.

Victims then enter their personal information, thinking they are connected to a legitimate site. Pharming also installs malicious code on a personal computer or server, misdirecting victims to fraudulent Web sites unknowingly. In pharming, more users’ computers get infected because it is not needed to target people one by one, just like phishing.

Some criminals send a code to an e-mail that modifies local host files on a personal computer. A computer with a compromised host file will redirect to the fake website even if a user types a correct Internet address.

Domain name system poisoning is another method of pharming. in which the domain name system table in a DNS server is modified so that someone wants to access legitimate websites but is directed toward a fake one. This method does not require changing the host file on the personal computer.

Anti-spyware programs cannot fix this pharming because nothing needs to be technically wrong with the end-users computers.

Gene pharming is another type of pharming. In this type of pharming, human proteins are produced from animal DNA alterations. These proteins are found in the blood, eggs, or milk of the animal. Therefore, livestock can produce several useful drugs.

Whaling

Whaling is also phishing. It targets high-profile targets, such as senior executives and government organizations. Criminals also target politicians and celebrities. Whaling is also called a whaling phishing attack.

The attacker’s goal of whaling phishing attacks is to manipulate the victim into authorizing high-value wire transfers to the attacker. Because of their high value, the whaling attacks are more complex to detect than standard phishing attacks.  The security administrators in an organization can reduce the effectiveness of whaling attacks by providing security awareness training to the management staff.

The whaling attack tricks personal or corporate information through social engineering, email engineering, and content spoofing. The attackers may send emails from trusted sources, and some attackers may create a malicious website.

The attackers also provide the target’s name, job titles, etc. Whaleing attacks usually depend on social engineering. The attackers may send hyperlinks or attachments to infect victims with malware.

What is phishing? – Exclusive Explanation

What is phishing? – Exclusive Explanation

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As I said in one of my earlier articles, phishing is easy to execute, and it requires minimal effort; therefore, many cybercriminals use this method. The criminals sent fake emails and text messages and created a website that looked authentic. They use email, messages, and websites to steal personal and financial information from users. This is also known as spoofing. It occurs when a cybercriminal sends a fake email masked as it is from a legitimate and trusted source.

An example of phishing is a bogus email that looks like it came from a legitimate source asking the user to click a link to claim a prize. The link may redirect to a bogus site asking for personal information, or it may install malware. Criminals are also used to get their target using the telephone or text message from someone posing as a legitimate institution to attract people into providing sensitive data such as identity, banking, credit card information, and passwords. Then, the information is used to access important accounts and can result in identity theft and financial loss.

Spear Phishing

Criminals attack extreme targets using spear phishing. Both phishing and spear-phishing use email to reach the victims. Criminals send customized emails to a specific person in spear phishing. They research the target’s interests before sending the email. For example, a criminal learns the target that he is interested in book reading. The criminal joins the same book discussion forum as a member, forges book reading links and emails the target. When the target clicks on the link, he or she unknowingly installs malware on the computer.

How phishing works

Phishing is prevalent with cybercriminals because it’s far easier to trick someone into clicking a malicious link in a seemingly legitimate phishing email than trying to break through a computer’s defenses.

Its attacks generally transmit using social networking techniques applied to email, including voice calls, messages over the social network, SMS text messages, and other instant messaging modes. It may also use social engineering, including social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, to collect information about the target’s interests, activities, and work history.

Before the attacks, the phishers expose the targets’ names, job titles, and email addresses. They also collect information about their colleagues, job titles, and key employees. Then, the data can be used to email a victim to get their beliefs.

Generally, a Phishing message appears to have been sent by a known contact or organization. There are two methods of attacks: through a file attachment with phishing software or links connecting to malicious websites. The third goal of phishers is to install malware on victims’ computers and trick them into divulging personal and financial information, such as passwords, account IDs, and credit card details.

Successful phishing messages generally represent a well-known company, but they are difficult to differentiate from authentic messages: Malicious links in the messages are usually well-designed. Subdomains and misspelled URLs are common tricks, as are other link manipulation techniques.