Understanding Spear Phishing: Recognition and Prevention Techniques

How Does Spear Phishing Differ from Regular Phishing?

Spear phishing emails are customized. Hackers include personal identifying information (PII) obtained through social engineering, such as a person's job, phone number, and work or home addresses. The basic method is the same as regular phishing attacks, but crafted with one target person or organization in mind.

Specificity makes these messages hard to tell apart from real emails. That’s why spear phishing is popular: it just works better than "bulk" phishing attacks. Instead of sending out hundreds of thousands of emails at a time, spear phishing campaigns involve researching victims and using advanced intelligence strategies to compose just a thousand or so convincing messages. These types of intelligent email campaigns are on the rise: recent phishing email statistics reveal that in 2025, spear phishing was involved in 67% of major security incidents.

Why Spear Phishing is More Dangerous

The targeted approach of spear phishing emails gives them a significantly higher success rate than bulk phishing: as many as 39% of spear phishing messages trick their recipients, compared to 9.4% for all types of phishing campaigns. 

Additionally, a spear phishing attack can be viewed as a cybercrime double-play. Attackers have the ability to compromise the identity of one business and then use it to steal the personal information of another. It is frequently a preliminary attack vector in data breaches and data theft. This drains bank accounts and destroys reputations.

Well-done spear phishing attacks look legitimate. To protect yourself, it’s necessary to learn to learn the signs of a phishing attempt.

Recognizing the Signs of Spear Phishing Emails

Spear phishing attacks trick you with smart social engineering, but if you follow email security best practices, you can spot bad emails:

• Carefully read the whole message. For instance, check to see if an email that claims to confirm your order matches a recent purchase you made. 
• Make sure the sender and other recipients’ emails are legitimate addresses. They could be fakes that are spelled subtly differently.
• Check all attachments. Don’t click on any unless you can be sure they’re free of viruses.
• Scan unknown links – they might take you to fraudulent websites or activate code that could hurt your machine.
• Be careful of strange subject lines or signatures.
• If the email asks for something right away or sounds strange, call the sender on a known phone number to make sure it's really from them.

The image below is a spear phishing email which was identified and quarantined by Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security. It mimics a legitimate FedEx shipment confirmation email very closely and is an especially dangerous email for this reason. Some indications that this is a fraudulent email include:

1. An invalid “From” email address
2. Invalid tracking information which differs in the subject and in the body of the email
3. A malicious attachment in the bottom left corner - FedEx does not send tracking information in the form of an attachment

These are spearphishing “red flags” that many people are not aware of, which is why investing in an advanced cloud email security is imperative to effective business email protection.

Preventing Spear Phishing Attacks

In addition to investing in an adaptive, comprehensive cloud email security, here are some email security best practices you should implement to further reduce your risk of falling victim to a spear phishing campaign:

• Invest in security awareness training to educate employees on how to identify spear phishing emails and how to proceed if they feel that they have received a malicious email. Employee training which promotes awareness of and education on spear phishing, is an important aspect of protecting any organization
• Security teams must implement, maintain, and update security technology and processes to prevent, detect, and respond to ever-evolving spear-phishing threats
• Everyone in the organization should only click on embedded links or download attachments that you know are legitimate and safe.
• Make passwords that are hard to guess by using a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols. You should never use the same password for more than one account.

Spear phishing techniques keep becoming stealthier. The only way for a company to avoid the potential damage of spear phishing is to use a fully-managed, state-of-the-art cloud email security system. 

Read this article for more details on 'What helps protect from Spear Phishing'

Spear Fishing FAQ

What exactly is spear phishing and how is it different from regular phishing?

Spear phishing tries to reach a specific person or organization instead of being sent to a lot of people at once.

What are the common signs of a spear phishing email?

Misspelled email domains, bad syntax, and messages that tell the receiver they have to do something right away are all signs of a spear phishing email.

How do attackers gather information to craft spear phishing emails?

Hackers research publicly available information on their target. They also extract details through social engineering scams and utilize stolen data from earlier breaches.

How should a business respond after a successful spear phishing incident?

Immediately disconnect their device from the business network and report the phishing email to IT. The business can then take steps to contain the damage by resetting passwords, scanning systems for malware, and stopping financial transactions.

What emerging threats are making spear phishing more dangerous?

Generative AI has made all kinds of phishing cheaper, and AI-assisted target research is helping cybercriminals make spear phishing messages that can get into the inboxes of important executives much faster.

How to Choose a Cloud Email Security Solution:

1. Use a defense-in-depth approach. Email security solutions lower the risk of spear phishing and other advanced email threats with layers of security that comprehensively stop attacks from working. Layered security not only prevents attacks and limits their damage, but it proactively identifies threats and malicious activities before they cause further grief.
2. An effective cloud email security protects employees against social engineering and impersonation attacks. It uses advanced intelligence techniques to recognize both new and existing attacks and prevent malicious mail from reaching the inbox.
3. Look for an email security solution that neutralizes threats associated with malicious attachments and links using real-time URL filtering and scanning of broad file types, including RTF files, Batch files, and VBS files.
4. An effective cloud email security utilizes the highest levels of encryption, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to provide complete, end-to-end email protection. 
5. Choosing a solution built with resilient open-source architecture is highly advantageous. An entirely open-source approach to email security is unusual, but highly beneficial in terms of security, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
6. Find a cloud email security that is accompanied by exceptional 24/7/365 customer support. Specialized, passionate support is a critical aspect of any successful email security solution that often goes overlooked.

If you’re concerned that you have inadequate protection, take action sooner rather than later. To experience what a good security platform will do for your business, you can sign up for a free trial of Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security today.

Key Takeaways on Spear Phishing

This advanced form of phishing is hard to recognize, but you can take the opportunity away from hackers by setting up barriers around your inbox. It just takes an investment in the right tools and training. Most businesses can’t afford the aftermath of a successful spear phishing campaign, so don’t take any risks with your email security.