Spear Phishing

Social media is making it easier for scammers to craft believable emails called spear phishing. The data we share every day gives fraudsters clues about our lives they can use against us. It could be something as simple as somewhere you recently visited or a website you use. Unlike general phishing (large numbers of spam emails) this nuanced approach exploits our tendency to attach significance to information that has some connection to us. When we check our full inbox, we often pick out something that strikes a chord. This is referred to in psychology as the illusory correlation.