{"id":5561,"date":"2019-12-16T21:24:50","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T21:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/?p=5561"},"modified":"2021-05-13T11:25:14","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T10:25:14","slug":"top-social-engineering-techniques-trending-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/pt-br\/blog\/top-social-engineering-techniques-trending-email","title":{"rendered":"Top Social Engineering Techniques Trending on Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know the famous saying, \u201cemail is the number one attack vector.\u201d Is this still true? Unfortunately, yes. The tool we use daily and that businesses rely on to get their jobs done, remains the number one attack vector and one of the easiest targets for social engineering attacksi<\/sup>. Social engineering continues to be at the forefront of all attacks that target people, with phishing taking lead as the top threat vector for cyberattacks.<\/p>\n

Social engineering relies on human interaction and involves manipulating people into breaking normal security procedures and best practices. The goal of these attacks is not always about malware installation. Instead, many are focused on credential theft and duping people into transferring money into rogue accounts.\u00a0These types of attacks aren\u2019t limited to email-based attacks. There are many methods and tactics social engineering can use to manipulate people into sharing sensitive information\u2014from web-based and wireless access point attacks to QRCode generation and phone attacks.<\/p>\n

However, in this blog we\u2019ll focus specifically on email and look at the top email-based social engineering techniques trending right now.<\/p>\n

#1 Phishing<\/h2>\n

While spam will always be an issue in general, phishing and spear phishing are dominant among social engineering attacks on email\u2014and they continue to grow in sophistication. According to Phishlabs, phishing grew 40.9% in 2018iii<\/sup>\u200b. Phishing operates on a different model to spam. Rather than low work and high volume, with profit coming from convincing a small group of recipients to pay a certain amount of money, it\u2019s more work and lower volume\u2014with profit coming from convincing a significant proportion of recipients to pay a lot more money.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the higher figures involved that make phishing and spear phishing more profitable for cybercriminals\u2014especially with a lot of businesses using anti-spam solutions today. In a phishing campaign, cybercriminals try to obtain as many email addresses as possible and craft emails to look like official emails from companies. These campaigns normally prompt users to click on a link that takes them to a (fake) site where a request asks them to enter sensitive information\u2014such as account or credit card details. Spear phishing campaigns, however, are carefully tailored to a very specific target (such as a company\u2019s head of payroll or CFO) and often involve requests for very large money transfers to the cybercriminals\u2019 accounts.<\/p>\n

The top phishing subject lines seen recentlyiv<\/sup>:<\/p>\n