Factors that lead to Phishing scams

The main task of the internet is to provide services to the users. In today’s world of internet, we use it for various purposes. But there are many frauds related to the internet. One of them is ‘Phishing’. Today we will discuss the Factors that lead to Phishing scams

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker sends an email that looks legitimate, as well as the website that looks legitimate, or hoping users will ’bite’ by providing the information the criminals have requested – such as credit card numbers, account numbers, passwords, usernames, and more. This paper discusses security and privacy issue related to the Phishing attack and how we can cope with this legally.

According to the Annual Report of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), Dept. of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, (Govt. of India) in the year 2016, the CERT-In handled about 534 phishing incidents.

And the majority of Phishing attacks which are happening in India are the concern with banking frauds. In which the attacker sends an email to the bank customer asking their username and password to reconfirm their accounts, threatening that if they did not confirm their account immediately the account would be frozen.

Many user panics on receiving such an email and immediately give out their personal sensitive data like banking password

 Factors that lead to Phishing scams

• Unawareness among the public:  There has been lack of awareness regarding the phishing attacks among the common masses. The people are unaware that their personal information is actively being targeted by hackers and they do not take proper precautions while they do online activities.

• Unawareness of policy – The criminals often use victim’s unawareness of Bank policies and procedures for contacting customers, particularly for issues relating to account maintenance and fake investigation. 

• Technical approach –  Even as people are becoming aware of phishing, criminals are developing techniques to counter this awareness. These techniques include URL obfuscation to make phishing emails and websites appear more legitimate.

Phishing is a major concern in India and will continue to be because of the absence of awareness among the Internet users who are new to the internet. There is no silver bullet to prevent the phishing scams.

However, it has been noticed in the most of the phishing attacks that the hacker succeeds in phishing due to the uninformed, unaware customers who without knowing that they are being trapped unwittingly pass on the information asked for by the fraudster.

Therefore, the awareness and education of the people is the key to fight against the “Phishing” apart from mitigating or preventative measures. The law enforcement agencies, the legislature, the industry should come together and coordinate in their fight against the risk of the Phishing.