Updates of my book project are available from this page >> Book Updates << and once I have published it, this page will also have updates of new book projects and any giveaways associated wiht them.
Below is an excerpt of one of the chapters of my book "Unmasking the Hacker, Demystifing cybercrime", this one is on phishing.
The term phishing dates back to 1996 with the AOHell
scammers and it is a type of technology-based scam where emails are made to
appears as being sent from legitimate companies or familiar people in order to
trick the recipients. There is nothing mystical in why phishing is
successful, and neither are the perpetrators of this type of cybercrime shadowy
figures in hoodies. Phishing emails exploit human psychology, using social
engineering techniques, to trick the recipient into providing their account
credentials or paying spoofed invoices. Common syntax in phishing emails, for
example, is designed to make the recipient act fast without thinking their
actions through, with their call to immediate action, spoofed believable
entities and appeal to people to do the right thing. Phishing emails, for
example, often convey a sense of urgency[i]
which encourages recipients to make panicked hurried decisions, where they do
not take the time to think whether or not the message is legitimate.
Successful
phishing emails
rely on being believable, playing to emotions and the false sense of security
of the recipient. These scam emails whether they are baiting for credentials,
money or intellectual property, rely on being believable, they spoof trusted
brands or people and relate to everyday topics such as invoices, correcting log
in issues or post deliveries. Phishing emails play to emotions with subject
lines designed to scare or promote a sense of urgency in the recipient, or by
cajoling or encouraging the recipient to do the right thing and click the link
to fix a payment for example. Phishing emails also have success as end users
may have a false sense of security believing that spam filters will block all
malicious emails, or maybe having an over confidence in their own abilities to
spot scams. Criminals send, or use bots to send, bulk phishing emails
that they know will have success somewhere as so many are sent.
[i] Ferreira, A., &
Lenzini, G. (2015, July). An analysis of social engineering principles in
effective phishing. In 2015 Workshop on Socio-Technical
Aspects in Security and Trust (pp. 9-16). IEEE.