Phishing and spear phishing are very common forms of email attack designed to you into performing a specific action—typically clicking on a malicious link or attachment. The difference between them is primarily a matter of targeting. … Spear phishing emails are carefully designed to get a single recipient to respond.
Keeping this in consideration, how do spear phishing attacks differ from standard?
Spear phishing is targeted and personalized to a specific individual, group, or organization. Conversely, regular phishing emails use a broad-strokes approach that involves sending bulk emails to massive lists of unsuspecting contacts.
Then, what is spear phishing and whaling?
The difference between whaling and spear phishing is that whaling exclusively targets high-ranking individuals within an organization, while spear phishing usually goes after a category of individuals with a lower profile.
What protects from spear phishing?
To prevent spear phishing attacks and other similar threats, Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection provides phishing protection against the three most dangerous attack techniques: Social engineering. … Mimecast also scans links in archived emails to prevent spear phishing attacks that may be delayed.
Why is spear phishing so effective?
Spear Phishing Leverages Zero-Day Exploits
They use these methods to compromise the intended victims’ computer system to gain administrative access to the network and other resources, including personal and financial data.