Page 38 - Banking Finance March 2021

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Phishing: Baiting:
It is the most common among users who are not well versed It is somewhat similar to a phishing attack. It relies on the
in browsing the internet and online resources. It is used to greed or curiosity of a victim. However, what distinguishes
obtain sensitive/confidential information such as login them from other types of social engineering is the promise
credentials, account details etc. Very often, phishing is done of an item or good that hackers use to entice victims.
by e-mail.
Pretexting:
Spear Phishing: A Pretext is a false motive. Pretexting is a form of social
It is similar to phishing, the difference being that spear engineering where attackers lie to obtain privileged data.
phishing e-mails are carefully designed to a specific They focus on creating a good pretext, or a fabricated
individual, organisation or a group. Such mails have a link scenario, that they can use to try and steal their victims'
to some malicious website to get someone unknowingly and personal information. Such persons pretend to need
unintentionally downloading a piece of malware to release information in order to confirm the identity of the person
some sensitive information. they are talking to. After establishing trust with the targeted
individual, the pretexter might ask a series of questions
Spoofing: designed to gather key individual identifiers such as
The word 'spoof' means to hoax, trick or deceive. Therefore, confirmation of the individual's social security number,
in the IT world , spoofing refers tricking or deceiving mother's maiden name, place or date of birth or account
computer systems or other computer users. It is a type of number.
attack to gain unauthorized access to computers. This is
typically done by hiding one's identity or faking the identity Importance of Cyber Security in Banking
of another user on the internet. E-mail spoofing involves In case of Banking Sector, the importance of cyber security
sending messages from a bogus e-mail address of another is to protect the customer details whether it is personal or
user. account related information. This is a tech savvy era and
more and more persons are going for a less cash
Identity Spoofing : transactions; activities and payments are being done through
A method of deception by using another IP address (that is online transactions. There have been many cases in the past
not your own) to access the network that is usually used as where the systems of the banks were hacked and they had
on-line camouflage to mask their activities and/or gain to bear financial losses due to which the trust of their
unauthorized entry. In other words, it refers to the action customers is lost and hence the customer base.
of assuming the identity of some other entity and using that
identity to accomplish a goal. The major cyber threats which the customers are facing are
through more and more use of mobile applications in which
Vishing :
Vishing is short name of voice phishing which is used to solicit
private, personal or financial information through phone
calls.

Smishing:
Also known as SMS phishing, this method uses text messages
in order to deceive recipients to solicit personal information.

Pharming:
It is the fraudulent practice of directing Internet users to a
bogus/fraudulent website which appears to be a legitimate
one, in order to obtain personal information.

38 | 2021 | MARCH | BANKING FINANCE