Phishing is one of the oldest tricks in the book of hackers. But as old as it might be, phishing still remains the most lucrative tool for cybercriminals; as they say, old is gold. This post tells you about the 3 common types of phishing attacks and tips to avoid them.

What is a phishing?

Phishing is a fraudulent activity to trick you into revealing your personal and confidential information. This information usually includes bank account details, net banking details, credit/debit card numbers, login ID and passwords. There are different ways an attacker can launch a phishing attack. These are the 3 common types of phishing attacks

#1. Phishing by EMAIL

A phishing email is a fake email that looks likes crucial communication send by a bank or a popular website. This email carries a tone of urgency so that it tricks you into taking an action like clicking on a link or downloading an attachment.

Clicking on a link in a phishing email will take you to a fake website. This website might ask you to share confidential information or it might just drop a virus on your device.

Downloading an attachment will (in most cases) infect your computer with a virus.

Here’s a sample of a phishing email. Notice that the email asks the user to click on a link (marked in red) otherwise their bank account will get suspended. This is a classic example of a phishing attack.