Phishing is a social engineering technique where attackers send fraudulent messages designed to steal credentials, deliver malware, or trick victims into authorizing transactions. Variants include spear phishing (targeted), smishing (SMS), and vishing (voice).
While phishing remains ubiquitous, infostealers now rival phishing as a credential acquisition method. Fake software downloads and malicious browser extensions infect machines without any email interaction. Security awareness training should cover both vectors.
See how fake game cheats deliver infostealers in our video game cheat analysis and ClickFix social engineering in our ClickFix investigation.