How to Identify and Protect Against Phishing Links

How Phishing Links Are Crafted

Crafting phishing URLs demands very little technical skill: an attacker simply needs to set up the prerequisite architecture, deploy a suitable URL, and send it to a potential victim.

Stage 1: Infrastructure Set-Up

For many attackers, this begins by registering domain names that look almost identical to legitimate, widely-trusted ones. A phishing link example could be a small, deliberate misspelling, such as “facebok” in a larger URL, or mixing visually similar characters such as “0” and “O”. The end goal is for a typosquatted attack to pass a quick visual inspection by the recipient.

Since setting up the requisite server and domains is so quick and easy, it’s common for attackers to bulk register thousands of look-alike domains at once. All the supporting architecture also falls in place at this stage – fake landing pages and imitation login screens all help ‘sell’ a phishing URL to its victim. Some advanced typosquatters take this brand impersonation even further, by adding fake CAPTCHA challenges and demanding a user’s phone number under the guise of 2FA. All information that a victim submits to these malicious webpages is collected by the attacker.

Some phishing attacks are advanced enough to rely on a genuine URL by hijacking a URL’s redirect feature. URL redirects are genuinely useful: they allow a domain owner to send users to a different URL than initially requested, and it’s legitimately used for temporary promotional campaigns, or to track engagement metrics. However, if the underlying server has an open redirect vulnerability, the attacker can insert a malicious URL into the redirect parameter. This essentially poisons the genuine URL, and redirects the victim to a site of the attacker’s choosing – usually an exact replica.

Stage 2: Lure Creation

With the infrastructure in place, an attacker then needs to create the context for the URL to be clicked. This is the ‘lure’, which relies on psychological triggers — urgency, fear, or curiosity.

With typosquatters, the most common lure is a requested password reset, or an alleged attempt to transfer a large deposit out of a bank account. This instills a fear of compromise in the target, whose urgency then makes them more vulnerable to clicking on the email or message and falling for a fake login screen. Other lures are far more targeted, however: Business Email Compromise attacks often aim to leverage a specific employee’s access within an organization, and the prevalence of LinkedIn can give attackers a lot of material with which to craft a hyper-specific lure.

The goal of the lure is to force the victim to overlook any discrepancies that could unveil a phishing URL’s illegitimacy. This can reach some fascinating conclusions, with recent warnings by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) showing how criminals are replacing QR codes on public parking meters with their own, which then steal payment data. This is called quishing.

Stage 3: Deployment

The final component to an attack is delivering the phishing link – and all of its associated context – to its targets. This contact information is commonly derived from breached databases. Criminals are also able to build large databases of business email addresses by combining employee names on LinkedIn with common business email templates.

Once the phishing links are sent out, the attack sites and their associated servers are monitored for hits. When a victim inputs their details, the information is stolen and often immediately abused.

How an Organization Can Protect Itself from Phishing Links

Phishing email protection is challenging because it exploits human psychology, which can’t be patched. Since attackers rely on manipulation and deception, stopping them is difficult.

One of the most effective strategies is employee education. Instead of focusing only on specific scams, staff should be trained to recognize common phishing patterns – such as urgent or fear-inducing messages designed to provoke quick reactions. This broader awareness helps employees pause and think critically before engaging with suspicious emails.

Reducing an attacker’s ability to gather information is equally important. Employees should be cautious about what they post on social media, particularly details about promotions, job roles, or company events. Similarly, public announcements about executive appearances should be timed carefully to avoid giving cybercriminals material for targeted spear-phishing or BEC attempts.

Technical measures also play a key role in preventing malicious messages from reaching the intended recipient in the first place. Configuring mail servers to clearly distinguish between internal and external communications, with warning banners on messages originating outside the organization, can alert users to potential risks. Domain verification tools, such as WHOIS lookups, can also detect and automatically quarantine suspicious domains. Recently registered websites often signal potential phishing infrastructure, giving organizations another way to flag and block threats before they cause harm.