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Spear phishing

nouncandidate·updated May 9, 2026

An attack targeting a specific user or group of users, and attempts to deceive the user into performing an action that launches an attack, such as opening a document or clicking a link. Spear phishers rely on knowing some personal piece of information about their target, such as an event, interest, travel plans, or current issues. Sometimes this information is gathered by hacking into the targeted network.

MWE

Classifications

Entity Type

Threat90%rule-basedr:entity.threat.attack.v1
?unassignedlast reviewed

Sensitivity

unclassified

Information Class

unclassified

Variants

plural
Spear phishings
possessive
Spear phishing's
pluralpossessive
Spear phishings'