A Study on Various Phishing Techniques and Recent Phishing Attacks

Abstract

Now-a-days internet has become a very unsafe space to deal with. Hackers are constantly trying to gain the user's personal information, and detailed credentials. So many websites on the internet, even though safe, this safety cannot be assured by all websites. These rule breakers avoid abiding by rules, and try to employ methods like trickery and hacking to gain illegal access to private information. T o be able to overcome this problem, we need to first understand the intricacies of how the virus is designed. This paper mainly deals with the different phishing techniques and recent phishing attacks that took place during COVID 19. like Link Manipulation, Filter Evasion, Website Forgery, Phone Phishing and Website Forgery. We have also studied a subtle method to perform phishing attacks that makes links appear legitimate, but actually redirect a victim to an attacker's website called Convert Redirect. In this paper , we present some phishing examples like Paypal phishing which involves sending an email that fraudulently claims to be from a well known company and Rapidshare Phishing where in the spoofed web page, phishers attempt to confuse their victims just enough to entice them to enter their login name and password. To perform these types of phishing the Phishers uses so many phishing techniques like Link Manipulation, Filter Evasion, Website Forgery, Phone Phishing and Website Forgery. Phishing techniques include the domain of email messages. Phishing emails have hosted such a phishing website, where a click on the URL or the malware code as executing some actions to perform is socially engineered messages. Lexically analyzing the URLs can enhance the performance and help to differentiate between the original email and the phishing URL. As assessed in this study , in addition to textual analysis of phishing URL, email classification is successful and results in a highly precise anti phishing. From the thorough analysis of the research paper, we have understood how phishing attacks work and the different methods employed to carry out the attack. Also, we have studied some of the most recent phishing attacks and measures taken by the authorities to overcome and prevent any such attacks in future.

Anti-Phishing Techniques – A Review of Cyber Defense Mechanisms

“…Phishing is a type of cyberattack which engages special tools and steps to obtain sensitive information from users. By definition, phishing is a social engineering attack that attackers apply to receive sensitive information from users [6]. The attacker could masquerade as a trusted entity, duping a user into offering their login information.…”

“…There are different ways through which these attacks are achieved. Each of these approaches is described to be a type of phishing attack [6]. The main methods included duping clients and users include emails, instant messages, and social media.…”

“…An excellent example of a phishing attack (see figure .2) includes the user receiving an email masquerading to be from a trusted website [6]. The email could also have a link requiring users to retain their login and other sensitive information.…”

“…When the user inputs their information, the action will provide the attacker with the information for them to use as they would like [6]. Users are therefore always unable to understand when a phishing attack has occurred.…”