How phishing emails bypass spam filters, why modern phishing attacks are becoming harder to detect, and the practical steps individuals and businesses can take to stay protected from email scams
How Phishing Emails Bypass Spam Filters And Why It’s So Hard To Detect
Email is one of the most vital forms of communication in the modern digital environment. Для businesses, emails are a prominent communication tool in dealing with their customers (support, marketing), conducting business transactions (financial transactions), and communicating amongst themselves (internal communications). Individuals use email as their primary means of communication both personally (i.e. social networking) and commercially (i.e. online shopping, banking, etc.) as well as for managing their accounts through email. In short, email is such a good way to communicate, that it makes it a perfect attack vector for cybercriminals.
It is undeniable that phishing remains one of the most effective and dangerous forms of attacks, together with nearly all types of attacks that are considered cyber threats today. Although we now have much better email systems that should help stop many of the ways phishers attack users when sending emails; there continue to be situations where people get emails from these phishers into their inboxes every day. A lot of times, too, many of these messages go through even the most advanced spam filters and avoid detection and totally fool the recipient into giving up some really sensitive information about themselves. If modern email service providers spend billions of dollars on developing their security and preventing/spamming email, what makes it possible that some emails are yet phishing emails to go through?
Attackers now use different techniques than before, so that is where the problem lies. Early phishing scams were often grammatically incorrect. Today Cyber Criminals use an entire arsenal of tools (artificial intelligence, social engineering) to conduct phishing attacks.
Knowing how phishing emails can get businesses through their spam filters can be very helpful for businesses protecting themselves from this type of attack. Regardless of how you use email (e.g., as an individual user, a small business owner, a marketer, a remote worker, or an IT Professional) – knowing the methods that attackers are using will help reduce the possibility of becoming a victim.
This article will help you to explain how phishing attacks operate, why spam filters may sometimes will not stop a phishing message, several real-world examples of successful phishing campaigns, and the best practices for keeping you and your business safe from phishing attacks.
Phishing emails are defined as:
Phishing emails are also known as fraudulent messages. They are basically messages that appear to be from legitimate companies or organisations, but are actually sent by criminals who want to use the actions that you take in response to these emails for their own gain.
These actions can be:
- Giving out passwords
- Type in your username and password
- access financial
- install
- access data.
- Click on links that may harm
Phishers use many different organizations to create an illusion of legitimacy when they send out phishing attempts which include: banks, technology companies, government agencies, online retailers, payment platforms, employers, and colleagues.
The ultimate goal is to instil either trust or panic in the recipient so that they take immediate action without proper scrutiny.
Phishing is particularly dangerous because while traditional malware relies on exploiting weak points in software, it works by manipulating human psychology.
Phishing Emails Circumvent Spam Filters
The spam filters of current day are quite sophisticated – they use machine learning (ML), reputation analysis, behavioral analysis (BA), and content analysis (CA).
Despite technological advancements, attackers continue to develop new methods of obtaining user information and/or credentials.
Step 1: Using Legitimate Email Infrastructure
Attackers often use legitimate email infrastructure when launching a phishing campaign in order to.
ensure that the email will not be blocked because it appears to be sent from a reputable source. Examples:
- A business email account that has been compromised
- Cloud services that are legitimate and in use by the general public.
- Legitimate, trusted email platforms.
- Domains that previously had good reputations.
Because of the good reputation of the sender, many spam filters will initially mark the sender of these messages as safe because of the good rep of the sender.
Example:
Phishing attacks on customers of a company through hacked business email accounts.
Because the sender is real so the email is real too.
Step 2: Well-Written Message
The old Phishing emails would always contain bad spelling and odd language. However now modern attackers develop professional emails that appear exactly like actual communications and they utilize the following:
Official Logos
Corporate branding
Correctly formatted
Personalized
Written professionally
Because of this reduces the risk for it to trigger a spam detection system.
Step 3: Doing away with standard spam keywords
The spam filters utilize the message content for examination and analyzing and the bad guys are well aware of this as well. Rather than the conventional words like:
Free cash,
Assured winners,
Click this button immediately.
Now, attackers use more authentic words that makes the email look like a typical, business email.
Step 4: Domain Spoofing and Lookalike Domains
Cybercriminals often register a domain that looks almost identical to that of an established, well-known business.
For example:
A single character is replaced elsewhere within the domain.
There is an error in spelling:
There are one or more additional words:
There are different types of extensions for domains:
These types of mimicry can make it hard for recipients to tell them apart.
When these newly registered domains have not yet developed a negative reputation, spam filters do not identify them.
Step 5: Using Images as Content.
Phishers regularly insert important content in pictures instead of writing it out as text.
When content is image-based, it’s much harder to analyse content. Although a lot of the new spam filters have the capability to scan for images, Image-based phishing still manages to get through successfully from time to time.
Step 6: Rapidly Changing Infrastructure.
Cybercriminals have a constant penchant for change by rotating:
*The domains they used
*The servers they used
*The URLs
*The email addresses they used
This high rate of change presents a difficult situation for security vendors to maintain up-to-date blocking lists.
Step 7: Using Compromised Accounts
The most (phishing) Successful attacks come from compromised accounts.
If an attacker gains access to a legitimate email account, they can:
Continue the ongoing conversations
Reply to previous conversations
Reference actual business transactions made between the two organizations
Since they appear so real, the messages from these accounts are highly believable.
Step 8: Attack Spear Phishing
Mass phishing attacks are easy to identify. Attackers research:
The job roles occupied by the individuals
Organization’s structures
Publicly available information
Social activity
As a result, spear phishing focuses on selected individuals
Resulting messages feel personal and can be tricky for machines.
Advantages of Recognizing Different Types of Phishing Methods
There are multiple advantages to properly understanding different types of phishing methods.
Enhancement of Individual Security
Receivers of Emails become more adept at identifying emails as suspicious before becoming engaged with them.
Improved Organizational Security
When staff members have an understanding of how to identify docks type phishing methods, they are far less likely to expose the organization’s network to damage.
Decreased Financial Risk
An awareness of the risks associated with phishing methods and better identification of phishing emails will result in fewer incidents of fraudulent transactions occurring without authorization.
Stronger Culture of Cyber Security
when staff are involved in cybersecurity awareness campaigns it helps build a stronger culture of security for the company
Quicker Response
Identifying a phishing email as a security threat early on allows you to report it much faster, which can help contain and/or stop the threat once it has been reported.
Risks and Challenges of Phishing
Human Nature
The most significant problem that we face in dealing with phishing attacks is human nature; most people are complacent when it comes to their personal safety and security.
Curiosity
Fear
Urgency
Trust
Authority
Educated or otherwise, anyone can be a victim of phishing!
Attackers have become more and more sophisticated.
The phishing attacks of today are designed to appear almost identical to legitimate forms of communication.
We are now seeing instances where it is difficult to identify the difference between a valid email and a phishing message.
AI technology enables hackers to send phishing emails to a lot of people from many platforms at once. Many phishing emails also do not have the poor spelling and grammar that they used to have.
Some of the phishing attacks that businesses are seeing today are called business email compromise attacks . They are generally perpetrated by an attacker pretending to be an employee or someone outside of the company (e.g. someone from Accounts Payable). These attacks are usually associated with a financial transaction and can cost the company a significant amount of money.
If a criminal gets one set of user credentials, they can use that same set to gain access to many other systems.
Business Email Compromise Phishing Example: Fake Bank Alert phishing scam.
Financial Institution Phishing
The most frequently used type of phishing scam is one where the attacker poses as a financial institution. The messages usually contain some type of urgent claim.
Unusual or suspicious activity found on account.
Account has updates regarding security.
Actual account verification in progress.
The recipient is asked to go to a fraudulent page that appears to be the bank’s login page.
The most important takeaway from the bank phishing scams is to never access your bank account through an email link and to only use the bank’s official website to access your bank account.
Cloud Storage Phishing Scams
The user then receives a notification stating that there are shared files that need to be reviewed right away.
The links to access the documents will actually take the user to a website designed to harvest user credentials.
The key lesson taught by cloud storage phishing scams is to independently verify the legitimacy of all document-sharing links.
Invoice Fraud
The attacker will send a fraudulent invoice to a company that looks like it is coming from one of the company’s regular vendors. An employee represents that the invoice is genuine and authorizes the payment.
When dealing with invoice fraud, the most important lesson to learn is that payment should also be verified through a different communication channel before it is processed.
Executive Impersonation Phishing
Imitators of management request emergency wire transfers. These attacks usually focus on the accounts payable departments.
The main lesson: develop a verification process for financial transactions.
Tips for Identifying and Stopping Phishing Scams
Check the sender addresses very carefully.
Check the Full Email Address and Pay Attention to Unusual Characters/Domains.
Don’t just click links automatically.
Check out a link before you click! Hover over it to see where it will take you before you click on it — and visit the web page directly, if possible.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) should be enabled since it lowers the risk of stolen credentials. Even when passwords are stolen, there is still an additional verification process.
Keep your software up to date, because security updates typically provide protection from new techniques that hackers use.
It is important to provide your employees with regular training on security awareness as this is the best way to combat phishing attacks.
Some of the technology features of modern email security platforms are:
1) Threat Intelligence,
2) URL Scanning,
3) Attachment Analysis, and
4) Behavioral Detection.
These features of modern email security platforms provide greater layers of protection from attacks on your organization through email.
When you report suspicious emails, your organization will be able to detect new successful phishing techniques being used by attackers.
Please confirm unexpected requests for payment, passwords, and confidential information independently from the person who is requesting the information through email.
Future Trends include AI against AI Security.
Attackers are increasingly initiating phishing campaigns that are generated through Artificial Intelligence.
Security companies are developing Artificial Intelligence-powered systems for detection.
So this leads to a steady technology arms race.
Behavior Analysis
Behavior will be the center of focus of email protection solutions of the future and not just the content of email messages.
Zero Trust Security Frameworks
Organizations are implementing Zero Trust as a methodology which assumes there is basically no reason to ever give or receive trust in any communication.
Advanced Email Authentication Standards
Protocols such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) are continually evolving and improving how we verify email authenticity.
Continuous Threat Intelligence
The systems of the future will facilitate the sharing of threat data in real-time, permitting organizations to identify and block phishing attempts and campaigns more rapidly.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Why are phishing emails sometimes found in my inbox and not in my spam folder?
Advanced phishing attacks use modern methods of deception that look legitimate, thereby bypassing automated filters.
Are spam filters effective at blocking all phishing emails?
No, spam filters will block many threats, but no system is 100% effective. The most important defense against phishing attacks is human awareness.
What is a Spear Phishing attack?
A spear phishing attack is a type of phishing attack that has been targeted at specific individuals or organizations through the use of personalized information.
Are Phishing Emails Getting More Dangerous ?
Yes. Hackers are using more and more artificial intelligence, hacked accounts, and sophisticated social engineering methods to increase their chances of successfully hacking into systems.
If you click on a phishing link you immediately needs to;
Change all the Passwords, Enable multi-Factor Authentication, do a Malware Scan on your Device, and notify all of the relevant organizations if you think your Sensitive Information has been compromised.
Conclusion
Phishing is one of the most common forms of cyberattack techniques, as it is successful because it attacks humans instead of just machines. In spite of the fact that many email vendors and internet protection vendors are making improvements in their services by providing better spam filters and detection technologies, cybercriminals are also continuing to improve on their own methods for attack.
The sophistication of modern day phishing attacks continues to evolve, with cybercriminals now using branded phishing sites and legitimate infrastructure, along with compromised accounts, and sending tailored messages to individuals based on their particular interests or needs along with new social engineering methods to trick individuals into clicking on the link that they send.
