Future of Phishing Scams – Preparing Yourself

The future of phishing scams is nearing. Phishing scams have been improving dramatically in recent years. Last year alone, the length of time to identify and deal with a phishing scam grew by 16.6%. Phishing also had an average cost of attack at £3.6 million.

The severity and commonality increasing paired with the improvement in technology is no coincidence. This also shows no sign of slowing down, and with the accessibility of AI, it is soon going to become a very serious threat to businesses. Here are 5 ways that phishing scams could be improving and changing in the near future.

Increased use of AI:

Cybercriminals may begin using artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, to create more convincing phishing emails and to target

specific individuals or groups with personalized attacks. This could make it harder for people to recognize phishing as the grammatical and spelling mistakes often associated with emails would be much less common.

Voice phishing (vishing):

As more people use voice assistants and smart speakers, cybercriminals may begin using vishing scams to trick people into giving away personal information or transferring money. For example, a hacker could install a software on someone’s Alexa / Google Home in which the microphone is not turned off after its speech has finished, meaning a full audio transcript could be transferred to the hacker containing sensitive info used to blackmail and other personal data.

Deeper fakes:

Deep fakes are manipulated videos or images that appear to be real. Cybercriminals could use deep fakes to create fake websites or login pages that appear to be legitimate, making it even harder for people to spot phishing scams. And with deep faked voices becoming more available, it is possible that a hacker could impersonate someone when performing a phone scam.

Increased targeting of mobile devices:

As more people use their mobile devices for online banking and other sensitive tasks, cybercriminals will likely increase their efforts to target mobile devices with phishing attacks. These were common in 2020 – 2021 where fake texts were sent by hackers, impersonating the government that aimed to get sensitive information through vaccine bookings.

Social engineering attacks:

Social engineering is the practice of manipulating people into giving away sensitive information. In the future, cybercriminals may use more sophisticated social engineering techniques to trick people into handing over their personal information.

How to prepare for the future of phishing.

Every day, criminals are finding new ways to access sensitive information and data. Which means you and your business need to find new ways of defending against this.

Simulated phishing attacks are a great way to train employees on what to spot and how to deal with potential phishing attacks. It also gives your business a chance to find vulnerabilities in departments and train where appropriate.

There are a number of software solutions on the market now that will simulate a phishing attack on a group of users within your organisation. These simulated attacks can be planned in advance and play upon some of the most common security weakness that can easily fool someone into clicking the link in an email.

Both the risk scoring, and training should be an ongoing program in your workplace. The types of email phishing that get through many of the safety nets are always changing and having a workforce that is both aware of the threat and how to identify potential new scams is an investment worth paying for to help secure your business technology systems.

To find out more go to our site and get in touch – Simulated Phishing Campaigns | Genmar IT