Cyberattacks that exploit software vulnerabilities are extremely dangerous—but often easy to fix, usually requiring nothing more than a patch. Phishing, on the other hand, relies on social engineering to target people, not systems. These attacks evolve fast, adapting to new narratives and platforms, forcing organizations to rethink how they approach cybersecurity.
In this in-depth guide, we’ll explore the most relevant phishing tactics being used today so you can build a stronger, more proactive defense for your business.
The ever-evolving nature of phishing: Phishing goes well beyond emails—it now spans SMS, social media, QR codes, and more.
The real-world impact: Phishing can trigger ransomware, account takeovers, and massive financial and reputational losses.
Modern attack tactics: Learn how threat actors hide brand names, use misleading ads, and deploy gateway pages to bypass detection.
The many faces of phishing: Understand common attack types like smishing, vishing, spear phishing, and whaling—and how to spot them.
Defense-in-depth strategies: Explore layered protections that combine technology (like spam filters and anti-malware) with cybersecurity awareness and external threat visibility.
Phishing is a type of cyberattack that uses social engineering to trick victims into revealing sensitive information—such as login credentials—or into taking actions that help attackers reach their goals.
The term comes from the concept of “fishing”: attackers cast bait in the form of fake emails that impersonate trusted organizations (like a bank), hoping someone takes the hook.
Modern phishing attacks are not limited to email. They’re distributed through SMS (smishing), phone calls (vishing), online ads, and even social media posts. These campaigns often impersonate well-known brands across sectors like e-commerce, SaaS, banking, and media.
Phishing doesn't require software vulnerabilities. Instead, it exploits human traits like curiosity, fear, or urgency. Still, cybercriminals may compromise servers or use stolen credit cards to acquire the infrastructure they need to launch phishing campaigns or host fraudulent websites.
They may also abuse technical flaws to make scams more convincing. For instance, malicious code can be embedded in documents to deploy malware, or email headers can be forged to impersonate legitimate senders—especially to bypass spam filters and email authentication systems.
Phishing is one of the most common entry points for ransomware. If an attacker gains initial access to a corporate environment—via malware or stolen credentials—they often escalate privileges, move laterally across systems, and exfiltrate sensitive data before launching an encryption payload.
According to the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, phishing remains tied as the top vector for initial access, serving as the launchpad for ransomware and other critical disruptions.
While phishing may seem unsophisticated at first glance, assuming the attackers behind it lack technical skill would be a serious mistake.
Credentials are prime targets in phishing campaigns. These may be harvested directly (via fake login pages) or indirectly (via infostealer malware that grabs credentials once stored on a device).
Stolen credentials can lead to account takeover (ATO) incidents—especially in customer accounts. Cybercriminals can make unauthorized purchases, initiate fraudulent payments, or access sensitive services. This often results in chargebacks, operational losses, and legal complications for the affected company.
ATO is a core driver of today’s digital fraud ecosystem and is responsible for billions of dollars in losses annually.
Phishing may have different goals:
Corporate credentials: Phishing can try to steal passwords to access Software-as-a-Service platforms, IT infrastructure, or corporate VPNs.
Malware and initial access: Links and attachments in phishing messages can deploy stealer malware or remote access trojans (RATs) to obtain initial access to a business network.
User credentials: Hackers can use end-user credentials in a variety of ways as part of Account Takeover (ATO) incidents.
Specific actions: Phishing messages can trick users into performing actions that weaken their security or the security of their organization, such as changing a setting, resetting a password, installing a progressive web app, and so on.
Certain attack types also have unique terms:
"Fake ads" and "malvertising are both used to describe malicious advertisements.
Smishing refers to phishing scams received as SMS messages. They can have a link or a phone number for the victim to call.
Vishing is related to the use of telephony networks in phishing attacks.
Quishing is the term used to describe a phishing URL address hidden inside a QR code.
Pharming is an incident where attackers combine phishing with a hijacked domain name, making the attack more convincing as the victim visits a web address that looks identical or nearly identical to the legitimate URL.
Spear phishing is used to describe targeted phishing attacks. Spear phishing might be sent to only a few people or even to a single person, allowing for a specially crafted message that can be tailored to be as convincing as possible.
When a spear phishing attack is sent to key individuals in an organization, this can be called "whaling," although this term isn't as common. Because criminals often move laterally inside the corporate network to escalate their access level, this distinction is also not always relevant. Nevertheless, when organizations don't take the necessary steps to protect privileged credentials, hackers achieve their objectives much more easily.
In general, these distinctions are not as useful today as they once were. Phishing attacks can employ multiple layers of deception and obfuscation. A malicious SMS message can try to trick the user into calling a phone number, or an unexpected phone call can try to get the victim to open a link received by email or SMS.
Furthermore, AI-powered attacks can customize the phishing message for several recipients, closing the gap between standard phishing campaigns and spear phishing.
Most phishing defenses focus on internal protection: securing employees, systems, devices, and corporate email. And while that’s essential, what happens when the attack doesn’t try to breach your network — but instead uses your brand to deceive others?
This is an increasingly common and often overlooked scenario: phishing campaigns that impersonate your brand’s name, logo, or visual identity to trick customers, partners, or even the general public. These attacks don’t trigger your firewalls, don’t touch your email gateway, and don’t move through your servers. They happen entirely outside your corporate perimeter.
Recognizing and responding to this kind of threat requires a shift in mindset — from internal defense to external digital risk protection. That means continuously monitoring for brand impersonation, rapidly taking down fraudulent content, educating your audience with clear guidance, and incorporating brand abuse into your incident response plan.
The first and often most difficult step is detection. When cybercriminals impersonate a brand to launch phishing attacks, they use evasive techniques to stay under the radar. That includes registering newly created domains, avoiding direct mention of your brand in page content, and spreading scams through less visible channels like targeted ads or social media messages.
In many cases, these phishing sites won’t mention your company name in plain text at all— they rely on images, mimicked layouts, and visual cues that bypass keyword-based detection tools. That makes traditional brand monitoring or basic threat feeds insufficient on their own.
Detecting this kind of abuse requires advanced brand protection and visual threat intelligence capabilities, ideally with AI that can analyze domain behavior, visual similarities, and intent signals (like password fields or payment prompts), even when the brand isn’t explicitly named.
Businesses and cybersecurity experts have been fighting against phishing for years. Today, cybersecurity platforms are constantly attempting to locate phishing web pages even before criminals start their campaigns. In response, hackers changed tactics several times to avoid detection.
Because phishing attacks usually work by impersonating a brand that is well-known to the victim, hackers regularly register new domain names that include the brand name in them - "specialcredit[impersonated bank].com," or "blackfriday[impersonated store].com," for example.
The/se fake websites can be detected by monitoring new domains and scanning them. This way, illegitimate websites can be subjected to a takedown even before the campaign is spread.
Criminals responded by avoiding brand names in their malicious domains: 70% of fraudulent domains do not have a brand-related keyword. Even if you scan the page itself, 18% of phishing websites do not even mention the brand in their source code.
Although this could make the page more suspicious and lead to a less effective scam, that's not always the case. Many users now browse the web on their smartphones, which have short address bars. Since users cannot easily check the complete URL, criminals rely on subdomains and other tricks that work well enough in the mobile environment.
Phishing websites also use images instead of mentioning brands as text, which defeats traditional scanning solutions.
Axur uses a combination of algorithms and artificial intelligence models to inspect 40 million websites every day. This helps us recognize brands and the level of similarity between the page being scanned and the official web presence of each organization.
After identifying a brand, our AI takes into account colors, page layout, and many other factors, such as whether the page asks for sensitive information or has password field.
With this approach, we can find phishing web pages even when they're trying their best to avoid detection. Every signal is recorded to a data lake that can be queried in our Threat Hunting solution.
While some malicious ads rely on code being executed inside the user's browser, which would make them fall into the "malware" category, criminals have adapted to more standardized formats that are allowed in social media platforms and search engines by relying on phishing tricks: impersonating brands and capturing user's attention.
Criminals can use ad-targeting functionality to focus on potential victims. This makes the campaign more successful and hides the malicious ad from scanning systems, since not everyone will see it. At Axur, we are constantly working to enhance our visibility into ad networks to scan targeted ads.
To sidestep policies that would block their ads, hackers trick the advertising platforms using gateway pages that do not contain any malicious content at first sight. These pages can impersonate news websites or other entities that are not commonly involved in phishing scams to gain the victim's trust as well. At some point, these pages will link to the actual phishing website that requests user data.
Hackers actively take measures to block scanning systems from accessing their malicious pages. One of the oldest tricks is "geo-blocking," which only allows the scam website to be accessed by users from specific countries. Since the target of a phishing scam can't be easily determined beforehand, this strategy blocks certain automated systems.
Recent phishing campaigns usually combine multiple filters. At Axur, we've been seeing several scams that are restricted to mobile users - sometimes by checking the technical capabilities of the device, such as touch functionality and screen size. If the device does not report the correct values, the browser is redirected to a different address.
*Our systems bypass these filters by attempting to access suspicious pages from different regions and simulating several devices, down to how they respond to code in the page. We keep a record of the page's HTML and a screen capture of the scam that can be analyzed by our AI-powered visual inspection technology or by security analysts in our Threat Hunting solution.
When cybercriminals use your brand’s name, logo, or visual identity in phishing campaigns, they’re not just attacking unsuspecting users, they’re also violating your intellectual property and putting your business at legal risk. In the United States, there are multiple legal pathways to respond, depending on the nature and scope of the abuse.
If the phishing site or impersonation campaign uses your trademark without authorization, it may constitute trademark infringement, unfair competition, or even fraud. U.S. trademark law (specifically the Lanham Act) offers clear protection against unauthorized use that causes confusion or damages your brand. You may also have grounds under state-level statutes for deceptive trade practices.
Legal action typically starts with formal takedown notices. These are sent to hosting providers, registrars, social media platforms, or other intermediaries involved in the delivery of the fraudulent content. Many of these parties have well-established abuse reporting channels — but timelines, requirements, and responsiveness vary widely.
To be effective, every takedown request must include strong technical evidence: full URLs, timestamped screenshots, page source code, email headers, and any other indicators of abuse. A platform like Axur can automate the collection of this evidence, reducing manual effort and increasing the speed of response.
Speed matters. Fraudulent content can spread fast, and each hour of delay increases the risk to your customers and your brand. That’s why automation makes a significant difference. At Axur, our systems interface directly with hundreds of global providers and can initiate takedowns in minutes — with a median takedown time of under 9 hours.
In more serious or persistent cases, legal escalation may be needed, including cease and desist letters, DMCA complaints, UDRP actions for domain recovery, or civil lawsuits. But even before litigation, a well-orchestrated technical and operational response can stop most threats in their tracks.
Inside the corporate network, spam filters, anti-malware solutions, and cybersecurity awareness training are the most common lines of defense against phishing. In many cases, however, this is not enough to mitigate the threat.
Because phishing campaigns are external to the corporate network, many businesses are not aware of these incidents, even when they impersonate their brands. This is a problem for organizations that want to provide a safe web experience to their users and avoid any customer dissatisfaction associated with online scams.
While companies may receive reports from users about the scams they receive, this is seldom enough to build an effective response.
The Axur Platform provides a full-fledged solution that combines external detection, reporting, takedown, and a data lake of signals, giving organizations visibility into the threats and campaigns that are run by cybercriminals even when they do not touch their corporate network.
Our systems inspect 40 million web pages every day.
This inspection tells us which of these pages are impersonating brands.
AI models check for elements commonly found in phishing attacks, such as requests for sensitive information, or payments.
Incidents that match a chosen criteria can be automatically set for takedown and blocking. This involves reporting the phishing URL and related assets to hosting providers and lists of known phishing websites so that browsers and security solutions help users avoid the scam.
Threat Hunting gives cybersecurity analysts the flexibility to dig deep into more complex incidents. This feature also assists companies in investigating situations where users fall victim to phishing scams.
If you want to see how our technology can help your business in this challenging landscape, talk to our experts.
Timing is everything. Communicating too early—before confirming the facts—can create unnecessary panic or make your organization appear unprepared. But staying silent can be equally damaging, and in some industries, it may even breach regulatory or contractual obligations.
The best approach is to assess the threat’s severity and communicate only if there’s a confirmed or imminent impact to third parties. Any public statement should be factual, actionable, and clear: describe the type of scam, reinforce your official communication channels, and provide specific guidance to avoid fraud. The message should come from your official channels—corporate website, authenticated emails, verified social media profiles—and involve Legal, Security, and Comms working in sync.
Even if your company isn’t directly responsible, having your brand tied to a phishing scam can shake public trust. Negative reactions spread quickly across social media, consumer complaint boards, and community forums. In high-trust sectors like banking, retail, or education, customers may simply walk away.
To protect your reputation, act fast—and visibly. Show that your company took immediate action, handled the issue responsibly, and informed the public with clarity. Track how the incident spreads, and consider deploying brand recovery or PR measures as needed.
Stopping one phishing campaign isn’t enough. The key is understanding attacker patterns. Phishing threats that target brands tend to reuse infrastructure, channels, and social engineering themes. By building a history of past incidents and monitoring underground forums or new domain registrations, you can detect repeat attempts early.
It also helps to register typo-squatted or similar domains (defensive domain registration), enforce email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC with reject policy), and use visual AI inspection tools to spot impersonation attempts—before the first victim clicks.
Every platform—social media, domain registrars, ad networks, marketplaces—has its own abuse policies, forms, and timelines. Getting fast action often requires legal proof or trusted partnerships.
Automation is the game-changer. Platforms like Axur already integrate with hundreds of providers and submit standardized takedown requests with proper metadata and structured evidence. That eliminates back-and-forth and accelerates resolution.
Brand monitoring is more than just searching your name on Google. A proper external threat monitoring platform should scan new domain registrations, social networks, marketplaces, discussion forums, and even deep/dark web environments. It should also detect visual abuse—colors, logos, layouts—especially when no text reference to your company appears.
Axur, for example, combines semantic, visual, and behavioral detection to identify abuse even when your brand is only subtly mimicked. The platform monitors phishing activity in real time and flags suspicious behavior like password capture, fake forms, or redirection flows.
A strong external defense includes outreach and education. Teach customers and employees how to spot phishing attempts involving your brand and where to report them. Use real-world examples, share how to verify legitimate domains and sender addresses, and create a dedicated abuse channel (like phishing@yourcompany.com).
Your internal teams, especially customer support and sales, should also be trained to detect red flags quickly. And avoid sending ambiguous messages from your own brand: vague subject lines, shortened URLs, or low-context emails can confuse users and make them easier targets for scammers.
Brand misuse should be a defined scenario in your security runbooks. That includes: clear detection criteria, predefined response workflows (including automated ones), assigned roles, approved communications templates, severity matrix, and escalation paths.
This isn’t just a security issue. Legal, Security, Marketing, Customer Support, and Compliance all need to coordinate. Regular tabletop exercises can help teams stay aligned and respond quickly—without internal friction—when the real incident hits.
Ultimately, protecting your brand outside the corporate perimeter is just as important as safeguarding your internal systems. If you’d like to see how that looks in action, our team can walk you through it.