What is Phisging? What is the Purpose of a Phishing Attack?

The advantages of developing technology are many, but in some cases, it is important to pay attention. Phishing, a type of fraud, is a concept that dates back to 1990, but has found a wider area with the development of technology.

Phishing is also known as a phishing attack. The main goal is to provide access to user names, information about your credit card and other sensitive information about you. It is a scam that is made via phone calls, text messages and email. Not only individuals, but also advanced institutions can be exposed to this attack. What is the purpose of a phishing attack? What are the methods used in a phishing attack?

What Can Be Done With Phishing?

The question of what is phishing is one of the areas that users wonder. Phishing; It is a fraud method that aims to steal information belonging to individuals and institutions via telephone, text message, social media messages and e-mail. With this attack, your usernames, important passwords that should remain yours, and network credentials can be captured.

During this attack, you will be asked for information about your credit card or password in order to update any of your accounts in the e-mail or text message you receive. You may be wondering what can be done with phishing. With the capture of this information, you will incur a great financial loss and your personal information will be in the hands of fraudsters.

What is the Purpose of a Phishing Attack?

The mail or message you receive looks like a message from an institution or colleague. In these messages sent to you, you are made to believe that some of your information is needed for anything. There is a URL link in the message you receive, and by clicking on this link, you will be able to reach the fake website. The question of what is the purpose of phishing can also be answered in this way.

This web site, which is fake about the subject they want, contains your personal information that you are asked to enter in line with the purpose of Phishing. This information; information such as your ID card, credit card numbers, user passwords, internet banking code and password.

What are the Methods Used in a Phishing Attack?

This attack, which steals a lot of your information and infects your device with malicious software, can be done in many ways. In response to the question of what are the methods used in a phishing attack, we can state that e-mail, social media and SMS messages are generally used. With this method, you will receive a message that you think was sent by the institutions you are a customer of, the place you work for or your colleagues. This message contains a URL link. The content of the mail contains a level of text to make you believe that some information is needed due to any situation. Email about updating some of your accounts is the most common method. Thus, by clicking on the URL link in the e-mail, you enter the site organized by the scammers. The site on your screen has nothing to do with real institutions. On this site, all the information you enter will be displayed by scammers. In addition, clicking on such links or viewing the incoming e-mail may directly infect your device with malware.

Another method is the message you receive that a contest is being held. You are offered to participate in these organized competitions and you are told that you have won a prize. Thus, your personal information is requested from you again.

You may receive e-mails asking you to edit your personal information from fake bank or corporate e-mails. In order to receive a better service, you are requested to enter your personal information on the link in this e-mail. At the same time, you can receive a text message on your mobile phone for any money collection. In order to collect money, your personal information is requested and you are provided with this information.

What are the Methods of Protection from Phishing Attacks?

You can receive many emails in your daily life. However, the e-mails you receive should be read carefully, no matter which institution they come from. In order to protect personal information and ensure the security of your device, it is important that you do not open e-mails that you are not sure about. You can look at the spelling of the incoming text so that you can understand that the e-mail is safe and authentic. There are not too many typographical errors in e-mails from institutions; Therefore, it is important to comply with the spelling rules. Some clues, such as a false e-mail address, can prove that the e-mail address is fake. There are no messages containing excessive emotions in e-mails from any institution. At the same time, no institution will ask you to enter your information clearly. It asks a few questions just for security and these are not important information like your account password.

It is also possible that when you click on the URL link, you can detect that a fake website has been set up. However, before clicking on the URL links that come via mail, you should make sure that they are reliable. Because with the link you click, your device can be infected with malware. You should hover your mouse cursor over the URL in the incoming mail and you should not click on the links that you understand to be irrelevant from the very beginning. If you enter the site, it is not a good indicator to have typos on the website. At the same time, you can check whether the URL address of the site in the link in the e-mail allegedly came from the institution and the URL address of the institution you are a customer of are the same.

If you are asking how we can be protected from phishing attacks, if you detect these attacks, you should contact the truth of the institution whose name is used as a fake. In this way, they can determine a method to prevent other people from being defrauded and falling into this trap. Also, if possible, you should set different passwords for each account. Phishing attack is not only done by mail. For this reason, you should not rely on messages sent via SMS or social media, and you should not consider any messages that request your personal information. You should make sure that the confidentiality agreements on the websites are correct and only after that you should enter the site. You should also be careful not to click on shortened URL links.

We talked about what a phishing attack is, how it is done, and how you should be protected. You should act by taking these methods into consideration and not fall into such traps.