Trap phishing poses a significant threat to organizations worldwide.
All companies must be aware of what is trap phishing as well as the most common types of trap phishing and methods used by phishers to protect themselves from them.
Email Trap Phishing – A Growing Problem Globally
Statistics show that around 70 percent of phishing attacks occur through email using a variety of social engineering techniques to trick users.
You may get a trap phishing email that appears to be from a trusted company or individual, asking you to click on a hyperlinked URL that takes you to a fake website where you’re asked to enter your account credentials such as username, password, or any other sensitive information. Once you do so, your data is stolen and the scammers get direct access to your systems, accounts, or devices.
Types of Phishing Attacks
Cyber criminals continue to be a threat in the digital security landscape. In its 2022 DBIR report, Verizon Enterprise found that phishing attacks were responsible for 36 percent of all reported data breach incidents in the digital world. Many email providers have deployed layers of email security techniques. Even with advanced spam filters and anti-virus software, individual users are still impacted.
Digital fraudsters will leverage several email trap phishing methods to exploit security flaws and lure victims, including:
Email phishing attack
Email messages preying on human error to execute malicious actions.
Content injection phishing attack
Injecting malicious code within the email messaging, including viruses and malware.
CEO Fraud (Whaling)
Email attacks impersonate a CEO or executive to intimidate the victim leading to Business Email Compromise (BEC).
Spear Phishing attacks
Spear phishing campaigns refer to specifically targeted email attacks against an individual or small group.
Vishing phone calls
Voicemail phishing is designed to lure the victim into calling the hacker directly.
These attack methods are often sent separately in some cases as one attack vector. Buried within these messages could be everything from a simple text message to embedded URLs.
The Rise of Deceptive Phishing Traps
Deceptive phishing scams are one of the most common types of email phishing attacks. They usually involve fraudulent messages that look real but are fake. These phishing messages often include threats and a sense of urgent need to get someone to click on malicious links or open a malicious attachment.
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Legitimate links – Spammers often incorporate legitimate websites into their spam messages so that they appear to come from a trusted source, along with the ability to bypass regular email filters. For example, spammers may include a link to a bank’s homepage within their message, along with other suspicious activities.
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In addition, cyber criminals may employ “time bomb” tactics to force recipients to click through a malicious link within seconds of receiving the message. Once the victim clicks on the link, the attacker can take control of the user’s computer and steal sensitive information such as login credentials. Finally, the attacker may send the victim to a legitimate website where they unknowingly provide login credentials and other sensitive information.
Deceptive spam emails rely heavily on their resemblance to legitimate messages. Therefore, people should be careful when inspecting links to avoid falling victim to malicious websites. They should also check for grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes, and typos.
The Impact of Trap and Deceptive Phishing?
Trap phishing scams are prevalent nowadays, including social engineering attacks. They often target users who are not aware of the risks involved. These scam artists trick people into giving out sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit cards, bank account numbers, and mobile banking details. To avoid falling victim to these scams, we recommend that you follow these simple tips:
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Never give out personal information or sensitive data unless you know the person asking for it.
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If you believe the message contains a fake email address or a suspicious subject line, mostly this message is a phishing attack.
What are Some Preventive Steps Against Trap Phishing Attacks?
Trap and deceptive phishing rely on human mistakes. Users choosing to send banking information to the unknown sender, clicking on a malicious link and downloading malware, or genuinely believing that they have just won 1 million dollars from a lottery contest in Nigeria, are attack vectors phishers will use daily.
Here are some critical steps to help reduce your attack surface:
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Refrain from sharing too many personal details on social media sites. Remove any reference to your email, phone number, or address.
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Change your password frequently. Please consider using a password management program to ensure you do not overuse the same email and password on public websites.
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Be an active participant in security awareness training against trap phishing threats.
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Keep your devices, applications, and operating systems up-to-date.
Before giving out personal information to anyone online, consider first why you should provide this information and what purpose it will serve. Often, hackers will impersonate legitimate companies and CEOs to lure the victims into clicking on a link or replying to the message.
How Critical Are Cloud-Based Email Platforms in Preventing Trap Phishing?
Email security gateways traditionally have limited protection against trap phishing attacks because these messages look legitimate and are sent from DMARC-authenticated email-sending domains.
Next-generation cloud-based email security employing artificial intelligence and threat intelligence data feeds scan incoming email messages, including URLs (phishing links). These email security platforms validate all URLs embedded in the message. These platforms also enable several pristine traps or honey pots to help capture phishing emails caught in the wild.
The Trustifi Inbound Shield™
Trustifi’s Inbound Shield imposes a layer of protection between your email system and the outside world. Inbound Shield readily identifies and blocks suspicious inbound emails using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other dynamic engines.
In addition to scanning and eliminating malicious content, the Inbound Shield looks for a host of anomalies, including:
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Imposters are sending messages from falsified domains.
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Requests for money transfers and confidential information (such as personal or financial information including bank account details).
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Links to impersonated phishing websites.
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Attachments contain executable code snippets, SQL injection strings, and the like.
These filtering processes take milliseconds to run and can even detect unprecedented zero-day attacks.
Trustifi’s Email detection and response (EMDR) offers clients access to experts to assist with the implementation.
Partnering with an Email Managed Detection and Response(EMDR) Provider
A critical factor for organizations to handle the increase in the volume of attacks is to have qualified cybersecurity engineers working 24 x 7 x 365 in the security operations center. Global companies struggle to hire and retain qualified engineers with experience defending against cyber breaches.
Many organizations will leverage email-managed detection and response companies like Trustifi to help augment their SecOps resources. In addition, it is important to educate employees to protect your organization from such threats.
Advanced Threat Defense
Trustifi continues to add capabilities to stop potential threats and protect critical assets with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and threat intelligence into its platform to help future-proof protection for its clients without adding additional complexity when enabling these new services.
Trustifi offers consolidated solution pricing to support small and midsize enterprise marketplaces. Trustifi requires fewer security operations, time allocation, and management resources. The solution is API based, not an appliance requiring a complex re-configuration of your email flow. Trustifi installs in minutes and requires no maintenance or upkeep.
Culture
As a global cybersecurity provider of both inbound and outbound email protection, Trustifi currently supports customers from countries including the USA, Canada, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the UK, the Netherlands, India, the UAE, China, Japan, Cyprus, the Philippines, and more.
The company has also developed “One-Click Compliance” capabilities that cater to world security regulations to avoid compliance violations, including PDPO for Hong Kong, POPI for South Africa, GDPR for Europe, and LGPD for Brazil.
