Member-only story
The key to a successful phishing attack is to make the email appear authentic. As targets have now become more wary of unsolicited emails, sophisticated scammers have begun to exploit patterns and trending topics to fake authenticity in their attacks.
Patterns
The use of EDMs, or Electronic Direct Mails, is a standard way via which organizations keep their employees updated on what is happening. To increase readership, large organizations often adopt a fixed cadence for the dissemination of such EDMs. For example, HR EDMS are sent at 9am every Monday, training EDMs at 3pm every Wednesday, and facility EDMs at 4pm every Friday.
If a scammer knows the cadence of an organization’s EDMs, they can customize and time a phishing EDM for these days and times. As the EDMs are expected, the target’s main filter of receiving something unsolicited will be lowered and the probability of a successful phishing attack is increased.
Trending Topics
Similar to leveraging patterns to time their attacks, a sophisticated scammer will also leverage trending topics. As the topic is trending, receiving something related to it will not be unexpected. A recent example would be the war in Ukraine and the global push to help the refugees. In this instance, a…
