Common Threats: Malware, Phishing & Social Engineering

Malware is software designed to harm or exploit a system, viruses, ransomware, spyware.

Example: how a typical attack actually starts

An employee receives an email that looks exactly like it's from IT, asking them to "verify their password" through a link. The link leads to a fake login page that looks identical to the real one. The employee types their real password in, and now the attacker has it, with zero malware, zero exploited software vulnerability, and zero technical sophistication involved at all.

That's phishing: tricking someone into handing over credentials or clicking a malicious link, disguised as something legitimate. Social engineering is the broader category both belong to, manipulating people, not just software, into doing something insecure. Most real breaches start with a person, not a purely technical flaw, which is exactly why security awareness training matters as much as any firewall or antivirus tool.