15 May Phishing vs Spam
By Jonathan Perz | Senior Security Analyst | Abacus Technologies
Phishing and spam are both types of unwanted and potentially harmful electronic communication, but they differ in their goals and methods.
Spam refers to unsolicited messages, typically sent in bulk, that are often commercial in nature, promoting a product or service. Spam messages can be annoying, but they are not necessarily malicious or attempting to steal information from the recipient.
Phishing, on the other hand, is a type of cyber-attack that involves tricking the recipient into divulging sensitive information, such as login credentials or financial information. Phishing attacks often use social engineering tactics to create a sense of urgency or importance and may impersonate a trusted individual or organization to gain the victim’s trust.
In summary, while spam is generally an annoyance, phishing is a malicious attack that aims to steal sensitive information.
Due to the annoyance factor, email users are acutely aware of how much spam is received. However, do you have any metric on how many phishing cyber-attacks your company gets? How often are those phishing attacks mistaken for harmless spam? What are you doing with the phishing attacks you receive (and yes, you do receive them)? How are you protecting your company from these attacks?
Cybercriminals play the odds. If they can get 50 phishing emails into your team’s inbox, they have 50 shots at getting one person to take the bait and click. The odds are definitely stacked in their favor… unless you are actively preventing those emails from getting to your team’s inboxes altogether. Ask us about our unique, defense-in-depth approach to protecting your inboxes and decreasing the odds of your team falling prey to a costly phishing cyber-attack.