Spear Phishing

The targeting of specific companies or individuals, using hand-crafted messages meant to trick them into divulging personal or confidential data for unauthorized use. Malicious hackers know people are the weakest link, and that, even if a company has a $10 million security budget, it only takes one user’s mistake to compromise its defenses. The cybercriminal has either studied up on the group or has gleaned data from social media sites to con users. The email generally goes to one person or a small group of people. Some form of personalization is included – perhaps the person’s name, or the name of a client.