In the contexts of being attacked by or unwittingly becoming a resource for distributed denial of service (DDoS), which is a bigger threat to an organization’s network and computer resources and why: Spam phishing or Spear phishing?
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Spam phishing is a bigger threat than spear phishing. Unlike, spear phishing, spam phishing is harder to detect and the organization may end up losing its intellectual property, money, and other crucial information (Koddebusch, 2022). Moreover, the threat could lead to the initiation of account manipulation by people with criminal intent.
Reference
Koddebusch, M. (2022). Exposing the Phish: The Effect of Persuasion Techniques in Phishing E-Mails. DG.O 2022: The 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. https://doi.org/10.1145/3543434.3543476
Spear phishing is a bigger threat to an organization’s network and computer resources because spear phishing targets individuals who have privileged access. If any spear phishing attempts are successful, a hacker can do much more damage with access to privileged account(s). Spam phishing is not targeting a specific group or individual, and even if an attempt is successful, doesn’t necessarily mean the hacker will gain valuable information.
In a general sense, I think you are correct: spear phishing is the bigger threat. It tends to be higher effort, focused, and the targets have bigger impact. However, this question was specific to denial of service attacks. In that case, the higher number of attempts for spamming will likely lead to more successes, especially since the goal is to plant a bot, not gain special knowledge or privileged access.
In the contexts of being attacked by or unwittingly becoming a resource for distributed denial of service (DDoS), which is a bigger threat to an organization’s network and computer resources and why: Spam phishing or Spear phishing?
In the context of becoming a resource for DDoS, spam phishing is the bigger threat. The primary difference between spam phishing and spear phishing is that spear phishing is targeted. In other contexts, you could say that the targeted and focused nature of spear phishing makes is more likely to succeed on an attempts/success metric. Spam phishing though, is low effort, high volume. Fewer attempts will be successes, but the much larger number of attempts will make the total number of successes higher. Secondly, spear phishing tends to be focused on specific data or credentials, such as those for sensitive date or financial accounts. The DDoS bot does not need special access, basic user permissions are all it needs to perform the simple functions that make denial attacks successful.
Hi David,
I agree that spear phishing tends to be more focused on data or finances rather than perpetuating DDOS, which this question is focusing on. Spam phishing can potentially influence more users in an organization while spear phishing is more focused on an individual. Although the individual that a spear phishing campaign is targetting could have access to a large amount of network resources, usually spear phishing campaigns are not aligned with potential resource gaining for DDOS attacks.
I agree with your opinion and explanation as to why spam phishing (resource for DDos) is a bigger threat than spear phishing. As you stated, spam phishing is low effort, high volume, but with larger number of attempts will in turn have higher success rates. Additionally, stated that DDoS bot doesn’t need special access, which would be a spear phishing target, to make denial attacks successful.
Since the question explicitly says under the context of failing prey to or taking part in (botnet) a DDoS. Which would be a bigger resource hog to the network and computer resources. I would say spam phishing. The reason I say this is because spam phishing is typically done in gratuitous batches in hopes one or more get clicks. Irregardless of their audience being sent to, it just relies on as many emails as it could possibly send out. Spear phishing on the other hand is done methodically. Typically leveraging resources like LinkedIn or Google to find company logos or people who may work for the company to be put in the signature line. Such as finance staff (accounts payable/receivable) or the classic “IT Support”. Since spear phishing attacks are usually planned out, and not done as fast and easily as spam phishing attempts, they would most definitely be less resource intensive then carelessly sending as many as transactionally possible spam emails. In short, failing prey to DDoS via spam is far more likely than targeted (spear phishing attacks). As well as being used (botnet) for DDoSing others, spam is far more resource intensive.
Hi Nicholas,
To add on to spam phishing, generally these kinds of campaigns require less planning and thought behind the campaign and can generally utilize a simple message and link with the hope that a few people fall for it. Spear phishing, as you said, leverages specific information and requires more planning to execute with mroe than likely less resources being available for a potential addition to a DDOS attack.
I believe that spam phishing poses the greater risk to an organization under the premise of an being attacked or unknowingly turned into a resource for an attacker. Spamming casts a wide net such as the case of botnets in which attackers can reach a very large number (sometimes in the millions) of hosts to inundate the target with a large amount of traffic to flood an organizations web space resulting in a DDOS or an “amplified” DOS. This makes it easy for the attacker to reach many targets in a short amount of time. The more targets that are hit, the greater the probability of success to the attacker. Spear phishing is a more targeted attempt at specific individuals and usually involves more detailed reconnaissance to ensure enough inside information is used to be believable. This is an instance of quantity over quality and depends on the threat actor’s goals. Genrally speaking I believe spam phishing is more effective due to the sheer volume of targets that can be reached very quickly with little effort.
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is a malicious act that floods the target server or its surrounding infrastructure through large scale Internet traffic in order to damage the target server, service, or normal network traffic. I believe that while phishing attacks target anyone who might click, spear phishing attacks try to fool people who work at particular businesses or in particular industries in order to gain access to the real target. I believe that Spear Phishing can be a bigger threat to an organization’s network and computer resources rather than Spam Phishing due to its effectiveness a great deal of research may occur before a spear phishing attack is launched, but the effort is worthwhile to an attacker because the payoff could be significant.
Hi Abayomi,
I do agree that spear phishing attacks can potentially result in more significant damage to an organization. It is even possible for malicious actors to utilize a high-level account to spread a spam phishing campaign to others in the organization. However, I think that spam phishing campaigns are more dangerous in terms of becoming a part of a DDOS attack. Spam phishing accounts are generally easier to conduct and even if only a few people fall for the campaign, they can further perpetuate it inside the organization and add resources for a DDOS attack.
In the context of being attacked or unwittingly becoming a resource for distributed denial of service, spam phishing is more of a threat than spear phishing. Spear phishing is more specially crafted to target a high-level individual in an organization, which is not as impactful in terms of distributed denial of service. Spam phishing, however, affects multiple targets at once and any individual that falls for it can perpetuate the spam phishing campaign furhter in an organization. As such, spam phishing can result in a higher change of becoming a resource for distributed denial of service. Also, with spam phishing, any individual can fall for the campaign regardless of how robust a security awareness training is. As such, mail servers and networks should have protections in place to mitigate or prevent spam from entering the network.
Hi Kenneth,
I agree that when talking about attacks like these the more dangerous ones are those with higher success rates. Spam fishing obviously has a much larger range and given the size of the attack you’re almost guaranteed to catch something. This is compared to spear fishing, where if the attacker misses, they most likely will not have another chance and have to start all over.
Considering that spam phishing may be distributed to many end-users, there is a higher chance of it becoming a resource for distributed denial of service (DDoS). Spam phishing is not selective like spear phishing, it targets everyone within the organization which increases the chances of many end-users fall victim. Spear phishing is only directed to selective individuals particularly those with leadership roles.
In a general context, I believe that spear phishing can be much more dangerous because it can target those who might have upper-level clearance, and if that access is gained by an unauthorized user than there can be so many other problems. This isn’t downplaying spam phishing though because that can also be extremely dangerous and might even lead to the same outcome as spear phishing but also the extreme amount of people that could become vulnerable to span phishing is why it can also be extremely dangerous.
In the context of becoming an unwilling resource in a DDoS attack, I think spam fishing is due to its much larger reach. A spear-fishing attack, while very effective if successful, is less likely to achieve substantial results over time because of its focused nature. I think it’s also important to point out that the people, with high clearance or privileges, who are most likely to be spearfished are probably more security conscious and less susceptible to attacks due to their position. While spam fishing casts such a large net, they are bound to catch someone who isn’t as security conscious and will lead to more success.
In the context of distributed denial of service I think the bigger threat would be spear phishing. I think think this would be the cause because in DDoS an attacker has an idea who they want to attack. They would be able to around the security and be able to get past who checkpoints. If this was to happen the company could face greater risk of individuals who are higher ups and who are leaders. They most likely have much more crucial information on their systems. This information leak could be much more of a disaster rather than spam phishing. Spam phishing could be targeting anyone at the firm so the pool would be much larger rather than having one person to hack.