Crypto Space Vulnerability : Phishing Attack

● Defining Phishing?
● Phishing Attack Framework
● Phishing Attacks: Characteristics

Current Market cap of more than 3 trillion dollars around the world is enough to signify the popularity that cryptocurrency has gained over the years. Many financial experts believe that cryptocurrency will bring a new era in the current global financial market. With the increase in popularity and impact of these digital assets in the financial sector there has also been a substantial upswing in the number of cybercrimes related to these digital assets.

Increase in cybercrimes associated with cryptocurrency, has also escalated the importance of securing digital assets from different attacks. The biggest question here is, “how to protect the assets”? In order to understand this question it is necessary to have complete knowledge of different types of threats/attacks on these assets. Most of cyber-attacks in past have been successful because of the ignorance of the user towards the attack or taking necessary measures to prevent the attack. One of the most common cyber-attack that has been witnessed over the years is phishing attack, which is on servers. Now the question that rises is, “what is phishing attack”?

DEFINING PHISHING?

The official definition or meaning of phishing as per the oxford dictionary is, “it is a malpractice in which an attacker sends fraudulent messages, disguised as a dignified organization”. The attack is carried out so that the attacker is able to get access of the personal information (social security number, bank details, passwords and other important information) of the target user. In common man’s language, the target is enticed in visiting a website that is created by the attacker to get access of the personal information of the target by gaining his trust.

How to be aware of fraudulent email? How to prevent phishing attack? The answers to these questions are given below.

PHISHING ATTACK FRAMEWORK

● Firstly a fraudulent message is sent to the target under false credentials.
● The target will open the message and will visit the website through the link sent in the message.
● The attacker will first gain the trust of the target and then will gather all the information about the target from the website.
● The attacker will then use the acquired information of the target to his advantage.

When a user opens the link sent by an attacker, the user is either asked to sign into the false pretentious website or is asked to download software. By signing into the pretentious website the user is giving away his confidential information and by downloading the software the user is compromising his system. In both the cases the attacker will gain access of the user’s personal information which can then be used by the attacker as to his advantage.

Some of the instances related to phishing attack in case of cryptocurrency are:

● Various social media platforms are being used to lure a user in updating to certain crypto platform.
● Through an unidentified URL pretending to be a crypto platform that is globally recognized. Given below are the characteristics of phishing emails that will help us in determining the difference between regular email and phishing email.

PHISHING EMAILS: CHARACTERSTICS

1. Creating panic: The attackers will create a panic by making urgent requests through email, thus causing chaos and inducing the target to act instantaneously without investigating the legitimacy of the message.

2. Spelling and grammatical errors: Another common characteristic of a phishing message is that it will have a lot of spelling and grammatical errors.

3. No company signature and seal: The email will have a generic signature and will lack proper company signature or seal.

4. Email address is not same: The email address that is shown on the form field is not same as the one provided behind mail.

5. Personal information of the user is requested: A user must be very precautious in opening any links from mails that are sent from unknown senders or where the user is not the one to initiate conversation. It is when the user opens the link and performs the action asked, user gets vulnerable.

Conclusion!

New technology brings new threats. Today in this digital world phishing attack has become very common. A user needs to be very careful when working over the internet as protection of his own assets and information is in his hands. User needs to be highly careful when accessing received emails to prevent being victim of phishing attack. The above illustrated information about the phishing attack will help the user protect from any such attack at all instances.

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Disclaimer: The article should not be considered as any financial advice. It is advisable to conduct thorough research before investing.

Photo by John Schnobrich on unsplash.