Phishing is a social engineering attack where criminals impersonate trusted entities to trick victims into revealing sensitive information. Variants include email phishing (mass campaigns), spear phishing (targeted attacks), whaling (targeting executives), vishing (voice-based), and smishing (SMS-based). Phishing emails create urgency, contain suspicious links, or impersonate legitimate organizations. Defenses include security awareness training, email filtering, multi-factor authentication, and verification through separate channels.
Cybersecurity