Sienna Arellano, Ian Kilty – March 25, 2025
Phishing is the most common form of cyber-crime with over 300,000 people in the United States alone reported being victims of phishing scams. What most don’t realize is that the term “Phishing” is all encompassing. Phishing attacks come in various shapes and sizes from attacking a targeted individual, to using SMS or voice call, to search engine-based attacks. Below we will dive into a brief overview of the different types of Phishing and explore this more complex concept.
Spear Phishing
Let’s begin with a more well-known type of Phishing attack called ‘spear phishing’. This refers to the type of phishing campaign that targets a specific person or group. Most attackers even go as far as finding certain details that will only catch that person’s attention. For example, let’s say an attacker is targeting a typical worker at a financial company. The attacker might find financial documents, project names, and pieces of that person’s specific job that will further catch their eye and convince them of the email being legitimate.
Whaling
Going off the idea of Spear Phishing, Whaling is another type of phishing attack that targets specifically high-ranking executives at a company. Usually targeting C-suite members and political officials, these attackers use social engineering to trick executives and gain sensitive information, money, or computer system access. Attackers might pretend to be a trusted contact such as a vendor or partner and use personalized information to make the attack more believable.
Smishing, Vishing and Angler Phishing
Smishing, Vishing, and Angler phishing all fall under the same category of phishing attack, and have the same goal; gaining sensitive information.
Smishing is a particular type of phishing attack in which the attacker specifically sends malicious messages to the victim via a text message. Smishing stands for SMS phishing of Short Message Service phishing.
Vishing on the other hand is a cybercrime that involves tricking people into sharing sensitive information over the phone. The term vishing is short for “voice phishing”. A common example of a vishing attack is a scammer impersonating a bank, calling a customer, and asking for their banking credentials to then gain access to their bank account. This type of attack relies on social engineering.
Finally, angler phishing is a relatively new type of phishing attack using social media. Attackers disguise themselves as customer service agents or fellow users to chat with and gain users personal information on social media platforms.
Clone Phishing
Clone phishing is a type of phishing attack where an attacker replicates a legitimate email from a company and then modifies and swaps legitimate attachments to include malicious links. The attacker will then slightly modify the sending email address. Clone Phishing aims to trick the recipient into clicking on these modified links and ultimately download malware. It is always important to check for URL masking and check where the link will be taking you before clicking it.
Snowshoe Phishing
First seen in 2009, the snowshoe spam phishing attack involves a spammer using a wide array of IP addresses and domains to evade spam filters in the hopes that they overwhelm and ultimately reach user’s inboxes. The metaphor “snowshoeing” comes from the idea that a basic spam filter is compared to a thin layer of ice and when you step on ice, the ice beneath cracks and you fall into the freezing water. An attacker overwhelms a spam filter in the hopes that it will crack and let in their malicious emails.
Evil Twin Phishing
Evil Twin Phishing is also increasing popularity as we continue to become interconnected in our digital world. This is a cyberattack that tricks user into connecting to a fake Wi-Fi network allowing hackers to steal personal information.
How it works:
- Attackers create a fake Wi-Fi network that mimics a real network. Usually, they switch up characters to appear like a trusted network.
- Attackers disable the legitimate network using a denial-of-service attack
- Users ultimately connect to the fake network and are directed to a login page
- Users enter their password in the fake login page and now attackers have that information
- Attackers monitor user online activity, access their accounts, and steal personal data
Search Engine Phishing and Pharming
Pharming and search engine phishing revolve around spoofing websites and webpages. Specifically, pharming is online fraud that uses malicious code to direct victims to a spoofed website to then steal their data. These attackers manipulate DNS and local host files to then redirect users to fraudulent sites. Pharming is a more technical and sophisticated form of phishing and requires knowledge of how internet traffic is routed and involves compromising network systems.
Furthermore, search engine phishing is also known as SEO poisoning in which an attacker manipulates search engine optimization and makes malicious websites appear higher in search results on platforms like Google. For example, say you search up the website for a banking company. An attacker can make a fake website and manipulate the search engine results so that website comes up before the legitimate banking website, thus increasing the chances of you clicking on the site.