Phishing emails (hoping you take the bait!) attempt to fool you into visiting a bogus web site to either download viruses like malware or ransomware or reveal sensitive personal information. The perpetrators of phishing scams carefully craft the email and the bogus web site to look like the real thing.
The Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) says there was a 13% rise in ransomware attacks year-over-year from 2021. This rise is a greater increase than the previous five years combined. Ransomware is a malware attack that encrypts a victim’s data so it can no longer be accessed and then demands a ransom. Once the payment is made, the attacker provides a decryption key to restore access to the victim’s data. The ransom amount can vary widely, ranging from a few hundred dollars to millions.