Phishing is a kind of social engineering attack, and often includes strategies to get sensitive information from your team. These attacks are effective because they seem to be from trustworthy sources, like a representative from a particular organization.
In many cases, phishing attempts come as emails or other messages. A cybercriminal posing as an authority figure or “official representative” sends a warning to your team about their account, asking recipients to respond and share confidential information or click on a link that directs them to a fake website. Cybercriminals either get sensitive information to gain access to your network directly from your team, or download malware into your system after unknowing message recipients visit a malicious site.
Phishing is a serious concern, as it is one of the most common causes of data breaches. In fact, 22 percent of data breaches can be traced back to phishing attacks, and 74 percent of U.S. organizations faced some kind of phishing attack in 2021, which was a 9 percent increase from 2020.