Phishing

Why Learn About Spear Phishing and Phishing Emails?

At the heart of targeted phishing attacks is the use of social engineering. When relating to information security, social engineering is defined as using deception to manipulate someone into providing sensitive data that can be used fraudulently. The key to successful social engineering is manipulation. Phishing attempts work because people are presented with communications that look legitimate and instill trust, often because the attacker is impersonating a real organization that the target does business with. Attackers will sometimes take impersonation one step further to pose as someone within the target’s organization. This is known as spear phishing.

Frequently, data breaches start with malicious attacks that aim to steal sensitive data such as personal and financial information. Cybersecurity and information security professionals must be able to identify phishing messages when they see them. Recognizing phishing messages and phishing sites as the social engineering attacks they are is essential to preventing data breaches in which sensitive information is stolen.

How Does This Lab Teach About Phishing Attacks?

The phishing lab is a premium Cybrary lab intended for intermediate-level students and learners. The lab teaches how to conduct a phishing simulation and assessment with the objective of generating awareness among users in order to let Vulnerability Assessment Analysts visualize those areas and users that could be more vulnerable to a social engineering phishing attack.

Cybrary's phishing simulation allows learners to generate a phishing email using SET (Social Engineering Tool) to conduct simulated phishing attacks. Identifying phishing scams is a key element in any cybersecurity awareness environment and an integral part of a Vulnerability Assessment Analyst's toolset.

What Will You Learn In the Phishing Lab?

Learners will be able to open the content of an email containing a phishing attachment, download it, and observe the features and interactions of the attachment with an open email session. Learning this process is a key skill for all cybersecurity professionals.

Learners will also have the opportunity to create an awareness campaign: reviewing and tailoring the content of an email that will be sent to end users, in order to be more effective among target users once the campaign has been launched.

Who Should Use the Phishing Lab?

The lab is ideal for Vulnerability Assessment Analysts as well as future cybersecurity workers. Upon successful completion of this lab, learners will be able to create phishing emails, observe how outside access and compromise are possible, and generate a phishing awareness campaign. This lab takes approximately 45 minutes to complete.

This phishing simulation is part of the Vulnerability Assessment Analyst career path. Completion of the lab means that the student has learned and demonstrated the ability to craft a phishing exploit, interact with the exploit, and create a phishing awareness email. Click on the lab to start learning a key cybersecurity skill.