Phishing And Spear Phishing: Modern Methods Applied To Age-Old Social Engineering

It may surprise many who have observed the recent media attention of data breaches to learn that in the world of Cybersecurity, sometimes it's the oldest attacks that find new life when they are applied in new ways. Phishing attacks, a form of social engineering where hackers try to trick their victims into revealing confidential information by impersonating as something legitimate, has been around for years. Fictional movies more than 20 years old depicted forms of phishing that are still in use today: The 1983 movie "Wargames" portrayed the fictional teenage hacker David Lightman deeply researching the original developer of the WOPR supercomputer to determine his back-door password "Joshua." Today, the same type of spear phishing attacks used the movie, those that are directed towards a specific target through in-depth research of the individual's background, are on the rise. While fortunately few attacks are likely to threaten a global thermonuclear war, it can be