Types of phishing

Phishing is tricking people into sharing personal details and logins by pretending to be someone else, and it's surprisingly effective. Some of the smartest people I know have been taken in by it and it only takes a moment’s lapse in concentration or uncertainty to fall for it. The maths is simple: it barely costs anything to send an email to 100,000s of people and it only needs a few people to get caught in the net for it to pay off.

Also, look out for targeted spear-phishing attacks where scammers may seem to know specific details about yourself to make the attack more credible. Or what’s known as whaling — the targeting of high-profile figures such has heads of companies or celebrities with elaborately planned and sometimes very convincing schemes.

Stay vigilant people.

You can also check if you’ve been caught in a data breach at: Have I been Pwned.

I updated this image for my book Big Ideas Little Pictures. Here's the original

Also see:

• 2-factor authentication.