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November 20, 2025
Phishing remains one of the most effective and costly cyber threats in the world. Despite decades of training and multiple layers of email security, attackers keep finding ways to deceive users and bypass filters.
Modern phishing is not limited to fake login pages. Today, attackers use OAuth consent requests, QR codes, and legitimate cloud services to steal credentials or gain access without ever delivering a payload. These attacks are sophisticated, automated, and difficult to detect with traditional tools.
This article defines phishing in cybersecurity, explains how phishing works, and outlines practical ways to detect and stop it.
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack where an attacker impersonates a trusted entity to trick someone into revealing sensitive information or taking a harmful action.
In the past, phishing mostly involved emails that linked to fake login pages. Modern phishing has evolved into a broad category of techniques that exploit both human trust and technical blind spots:
Phishing works because it manipulates context and urgency, not just technology.
Every phishing campaign follows a predictable lifecycle. Understanding these stages helps security teams identify where defenses often fail.
Attackers distribute phishing emails that appear legitimate, often leveraging brands like Microsoft, Docusign, PayPal, and more.. These emails frequently come from compromised or newly registered domains designed to mimic trusted senders.
The message encourages users to take an immediate action, such as clicking a link, scanning a QR code, or opening an attachment. Language often creates urgency or authority, making users act before thinking.
After engagement, users are redirected to a credential harvesting page or a payload download. In OAuth phishing, no credentials are stolen directly. Instead, the victim grants access permissions that allow attackers to read emails, exfiltrate data, or maintain persistent access.
Once the attacker has access, they use it to escalate privileges, move laterally, or launch new phishing attempts from within the organization. In business email compromise (BEC) attacks, they may impersonate executives or vendors to request wire transfers or sensitive data.
Emails that lead to fake login portals designed to steal usernames and passwords.
Attackers trick users into granting a malicious app permissions to their Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace account. This bypasses the need for a password entirely, allowing attackers to read emails, exfiltrate data, or maintain persistent access via API tokens.
Highly targeted attacks crafted using personal or organizational context. These are often aimed at specific employees or executives.
Attackers send emails claiming a subscription is renewing or a charge is pending and instruct the victim to call a support number. When the victim calls, the attacker uses social engineering to steal payment details or convince them to install remote access software.
Attackers embed malicious links inside QR codes, often in PDF or image attachments. Because the link is not visible as text, it can bypass traditional URL analysis and, when scanned on a mobile device, send users to phishing sites on unmanaged endpoints.
Attackers send malicious calendar invitations (.ics files). When the event is added, the description includes phishing links or callback instructions that bypass email body inspection and land directly in users’ calendars.
Traditional secure email gateways (SEGs) rely on static indicators such as URL reputation, sender IP, or attachment hashes. Modern phishing attacks exploit the gaps those systems cannot see.
Key reasons SEGs miss phishing include:
When detections are opaque, defenders cannot verify why a message was flagged or missed, which slows response and creates false confidence.
Sublime addresses this by providing detection transparency. Security teams can see exactly which rules or models triggered a verdict, trace message lineage, and adjust logic immediately. Learn more about how Sublime enables explainable detection in our detection transparency overview.
In a recent phishing campaign analyzed by Sublime Security, attackers impersonated Zoom to steal Xfinity customer credentials. The emails appeared to contain a shared Zoom document, but the attached HTML files redirected users to a counterfeit Xfinity login page designed to harvest their credentials.
The attackers combined two trusted brands to increase credibility. Zoom was used to make the email appear legitimate, while Xfinity was used to capture real login details. Because the HTML attachments did not include traditional malware or obvious phishing links, many secure email gateways failed to flag them.
Sublime’s explainable detection and message lineage capabilities expose these hidden relationships across the entire attack chain. Security teams can see exactly how the malicious HTML redirects to the fake login page, understand why it was detected, and quickly deploy targeted detection rules to block similar threats in the future.
Read Sublime’s full breakdown of the phishing campaign: Phishing for Xfinity credentials with malicious Zoom docs.
Use adaptive, explainable detection that evaluates message context, not just content. Sublime’s AI-powered models analyze sender behavior, message lineage, and intent to identify phishing even when it uses trusted domains.
Encourage users to report suspicious messages, but avoid manual backlog. Sublime automatically analyzes, classifies, and routes user-reported emails, saving analysts hours per day.
Adopt phishing-resistant MFA, hardware security keys, and least-privilege access policies. Regularly review OAuth app permissions and revoke unused or suspicious connections.
Attackers continuously evolve. Sublime enables teams to search historical message data, investigate potential campaigns, and deploy new rules immediately, without vendor delays or blind spots.
Phishing is when someone pretends to be a trusted person or company to trick you into revealing sensitive information, such as passwords or payment details.
Check for subtle inconsistencies: misspelled or lookalike domains, unexpected attachments, urgent or unusual requests, and links that lead outside trusted domains. Be especially cautious with QR codes or “callback” scams prompting you to call a number. Sublime detects and explains these threats automatically.
Phishing targets a broad audience, while spear phishing is customized for specific individuals or organizations using personal details to appear legitimate.
Phishing succeeds because it manipulates human behavior rather than exploiting technical flaws. Even with advanced filters, attackers can use legitimate services or novel delivery methods that fool both users and systems.
Sublime detects and explains phishing attacks in real time with adaptive AI, providing full transparency into every decision. Teams can see why messages were flagged, how security agents came to their decisions, and automate triage for user-reported messages.
Phishing is no longer limited to simple credential theft. It now blends automation, trusted infrastructure, and behavioral manipulation to outsmart static defenses.
To stop phishing effectively, defenders need visibility, explainability, and control. Sublime provides all three, helping security teams detect, investigate, and respond to threats faster than attackers can adapt.
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