Spear Phishing
Spear phishing is a highly targeted form of email phishing in which an attacker impersonates a trusted sender to trick victims into sharing sensitive credentials or downloading ransomware on corporate systems.
What Is Spear Phishing?
Spear phishing is becoming an increasingly popular attack vector because it is generally more successful than conventional phishing. As opposed to sending hundreds of thousands of relatively generic emails out at a time, spear phishing campaigns involve researching victims and using advanced intelligence strategies to compose just a select few highly convincing messages.
Anatomy of a Spear Phishing Attack
The majority of spear phishing attacks follow the same four phases:
Phase 1
Research
Select Targets
Cyberthieves collect data available on the Internet from data breaches, social media profiles and corporate websites to build their target list.
Phase 2
Develop
Build Attack
Prior to launching the attack campaign, cybercriminals develop their payloads such as building phony websites impersonating legitimate organizations or brands to deceive their victims.
Phase 3
Deceive
Launch Campaign
Cybercriminals launch spear phishing campaigns targeting the victims they’ve identified in their target list. Emails sent in these campaigns do not necessarily rely on malicious links or attachments to deceive recipients. Instead, attackers use stealthy impersonation tactics such as spoofing, look-alike domains, or display name deception.
Phase 4
Retrieve
Reap Rewards
Once the victim takes the action requested in the email, such as clicking a phishing link or opening a malicious attachment, attackers are able to login to the victim’s account or access their system to steal confidential information that can be monetized for personal gain.
The Guardian Digital Advantage
Protect your users, your key business assets and your reputation with a multi-layered email protection system that keeps
spear phishing attacks out of the inbox.
Safeguards the Inbox against Spear Phishing & Impersonation Attacks
Spear phishing emails look and feel like legitimate messages, and often bypass traditional email security defenses such as spam filters and antivirus software to reach employees’ inboxes as a result. Your employees are not security experts, and even the most security aware users can fall victim to today’s sophisticated attacks, frequently resulting in extensive downtime, data theft and reputation harm for the target organization.
Guardian Digital fortifies the inbox against spear phishing and impersonation scams with adaptive real-time defenses that analyze hundreds of thousands of email attributes including legitimate sender behavior and sender-recipient relationships to prevent dangerous spear phishing emails from reaching your users.
Offers Complete Spear Phishing Protection by Closing Critical Gaps in Native Microsoft 365 & Google Workspace Email Security
Native Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace email protection is unable to identify and block spear phishing emails that are often crafted specifically to evade these defenses. Relying on natiive cloud email protection alone leaves your business at great risk, given that 30% of employees continue to open spear phishing emails they receive.
Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security closes the gaps in native Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace email protection with critical additional layers of proactive email defenses capable of detecting even the most deceptive spear phishing attempts before they are delivered, while applying the Threat Intelligence gathered to prevent future attacks.
Enhances IT Resources to Provide Superior Defense Against Spear Phishing & Other Targeted Attacks
Businesses of all sizes - especially SMBs - frequently experience a shortage of cybersecurity resources and expertise, leaving them unprepared to defend against increasingly stealthy modern spear phishing campaigns.
Guardian Digital’s expert ongoing system monitoring, maintenance and accessible support provide a remote extension of your IT team, bolstering the security of your email infrastructure and optimizing your team’s productivity with reliable, cost-efficient spear phishing protection.
Safeguard Your Users, Key Business Assets & Brand Image against Targeted Spear Phishing Attacks with Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security.
Phishing Is Evolving.
Are Your Current Email Defenses
Falling Behind?
Modern phishing scams have introduced a new level of risk for businesses. Attackers are targeting Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace users in increasingly sophisticated campaigns designed to evade built-in security defenses.
Email Risk in Microsoft 365
is Greater than Ever
What's your strategy for preventing loss of email communication and theft in Microsoft 365? Guardian Digital secures Microsoft 365 against the cost of credential phishing and account takeovers.
