Spear Phishing Targets Bigwigs

You're probably adept at dodging phishing scams by now. You have heard all about them and seen a million of them, so you're confident about the legitimacy of any email you open.

Unfortunately, the scammers are creative. Welcome to the age of spear phishing. Like good old fashioned phishing, you get a fake email asking you to give away some valuable information. The new twist is that the message was crafted for your eyes only.

Spear phishing does not rely on volume to catch a small percentage of victims. Instead, it assumes that knowledge about your individual circumstances will fool you. For now, the main targets are corporate employees - since they're presumably worth the trouble, and information about them is easy to find.

To find out more about the practice, see About.com's resource on Spear Phishing.

Further reading:

• How to Detect Phishing Scams
• Vishing Scams Dial for Your Dollars