Learn about the differences between spear phishing and phishing, so you can identify and protect your organization from threats.

Threat actors love phishing because it works. It is particularly effective in cloud infrastructure — once they’re inside, they gain access to anything else related to that cloud. According to Hornetsecurity’s Cybersecurity Report 2025, there were more than 471 million emails sent in 2024 that were flagged as “malicious.”

In terms of email attacks, phishing remained the top attack method at 33.3%. This makes it by far the most common attack vector, next to malicious URLs. But not all phishing is the same. Highly targeted phishing campaigns against specific individuals or types of individuals are known as spear phishing.

It’s important to be able to spot phishing in general. But for targets of spear phishing, it is even more essential to spot the telltale signs, as the damage done in these attacks tends to be greater.

What is phishing?

Phishing is basically an online version of fishing — except instead of marine life, the goal is to lure gullible users to reveal passwords and personal information by clicking on a malicious link or opening an attachment. Typical attacks are sent through email.

Sometimes, cybercriminals pose as representatives of cloud service providers and send messages related to a variety of online services and applications.

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Source : https://www.techrepublic.com/article/spear-phishing-vs-phishing/