Phishing emails and messages are among the most dangerous cybersecurity threats. One of the most common and harmful examples is the Social Security Administration phishing scam, which targets unsuspecting individuals with alarming and deceptive messages. Even the biggest data breaches and financial frauds in history started with someone receiving a phishing email.
They are highly effective because of two things — urgency and impersonation. You'll often see phishing emails or messages asking you to take immediate action. They create urgency to make you panic and click the link, which can install malware on your device. Scammers build this urgency through impersonation, pretending to be government agencies and threatening you with things like pending taxes, traffic violation tickets and more.
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