When Clickbait Goes Bad – How to Protect your Identity & Business from Clickbait Phishing Scams

Everyone makes mistakes, but when something as simple as a single click can have perilous impacts on your identity, bank account, and business, the stakes get a lot higher. One simple click on a malicious link in an email, text message, or on a website or application (and, in fairness, a double click on a malicious attachment) can mean weeks, months, or even years of recovery—if recovery is even possible. If you make the same mistake on a corporate network, the ramifications can be near business-ending, cost tens of thousands of dollars to mitigate, or make the headlines for yet another security breach or ransomware attack.

If one malicious clickbait scam may destroy you and your business, then why are so many people still making this mistake? This blog discusses the challenges with malicious links and attachments, the best ways to recognize them when they do appear, the emerging risk of AI-driven clickbait creation, and how the impact of phishing can be significantly reduced, if not altogether mitigated, by following simple cybersecurity hygiene guidelines.

Whatever you want to call them—scammers, cybercriminals, hackers, attackers, or threat actors (and technically there is a difference)—their goals are fairly similar. They want to find the easiest path to compromise your identity or penetrate your company’s network. Malicious links are the keys to the kingdom for them. With them, they are most likely to do one of two things:

1. Sabotage: spread malware infections, etc. to disrupt or corrupt data, causing harm or inconvenience to you or your company based on some nefarious mission or nation-state cyber war tactic. Today, it's rare to see malicious links executed for “fun”, such as the exploits in the late 1990s based on bragging rights, proof of concepts, or publicity.

2. Theft: lure an unsuspecting user to expose valuables, such as data, identities, or money, or to grant an access point to restricted systems or through which they can move laterally to gain access to restricted systems and ultimately exfiltrate data of value and relevant to their mission.
   

As we can see, it is highly advantageous for threat actors when they convince you to click seemingly innocuous clickbait links. Clickbait scams fall under the broader category of social engineering attacks. Social engineering leverages an understanding of the way people think and act to manipulate a user’s behavior. All the threat actor needs to do is understand what drives a user’s actions. With that knowledge, they can use deceptive tactics, like making them believe the email or website is real, the source is trustworthy, and that it is urgent to perform an action.

They may also try to insight a heightened emotional response from you (fear, anger, excitement, curiosity, guilt, sadness) by emphasizing trends, controversial news, or other hot topics. Humans are far more likely to take irrational or risky actions when they are in an undesirable or compromised emotional state.

Spotting malicious clickbait can be tricky. Here are five tips to help you navigate whether or not a link delivered via email, over a text, on a website, etc. is malicious:

1. Watch for mistakes.

Mistakes and odd display, construction, or formatting of content, including misspellings, typos, poor grammar, or suspicious link or file names, can indicate a deceptive phishing scheme. The context of the message or the time an email or text in question was sent can also help to tip you off, including malformed times and dates. Likewise, irregularities in the URL, poor image quality, and outdated logos can all indicate malicious intent.

2. Inspect where the link is from.

If you receive a suspicious message—especially anything asking you to click a link or download a document—check to see if it is coming from a legitimate email address, or review your company’s global address list or the social media profile that sent the message. Email addresses that are very clearly incorrect, or that would not be associated with a business account, are a clear giveaway. Additionally, watch for detailed imitators such as substituting numbers or symbols for letters. For example, using 0 for O or + for t can fool most individuals who don’t look close enough.

3. Prove or validate the identity of the sender.

If you receive a suspicious email or message from a seemingly legitimate source, try contacting the source through an alternative communication vehicle, like a phone call. For instance, if you get a message supposedly from your bank, call your bank to inquire about the message. If you get a notification about an online account, avoid the email and log into your account through your usual, verified process to determine whether it’s a legitimate notification or a scam attempt. Don’t click on the link in the email; navigate to the website on your own.

In addition, never use the phone number provided in the suspicious email or sourced from an internet search. Go directly to the company’s website to find contact information. Scammers have been known to flood internet search engines with fake phone numbers for airlines and banks to perpetuate their scams.

4. Pay attention to your emotions.

If the message triggers a curious, fearful, or negative response, consider your elevated emotional response a red flag. Clickbait can be just as threatening as being accosted, and keeping calm is crucial to determining a scam versus reality. In addition, just like drunk driving, avoid answering emails, or clicking on links when impaired. You should always use your best judgment when reviewing any questionable content.

5. Be wary of volunteering information.

Providing even basic data, like your email address or phone number, could leave you vulnerable. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Giveaways and incentives are strong motivators, and thus common targeting methods and attack drivers. As a rule of thumb, never disclose your personally identifiable information to unknown or untrusted sources—especially over the phone or Internet. For example, if your home alarm system asks for the password to access your account, then you are being set up for a scam. No one should ever ask you for your password to access your account. Instead, security questions and PINs should be used to validate your identity.

Knowing how to identify and avoid (or better yet, report) a malicious link is an important preventative strategy. But occasionally, we all make mistakes. Whether the email or website looks real or fails to trigger our “fight or flight” response, we are never 100% secure in our ability to spot a bad link. Good cybersecurity hygiene can safeguard you when preventative education and identification fails.

Cyber hygiene, or cybersecurity hygiene, is a set of practices organizations and individuals perform regularly to maintain the health and security of users, devices, networks, clouds, and data. It isn’t unlike our own personal hygiene. Showering frequently and brushing (and flossing) our teeth are the precautionary measures we take to prevent the spread of disease, reduce the risk of cavities, and overall maintain our physical health. In the same way, organizations can follow basic cybersecurity actions regularly to prevent data breaches and other security incidents.

Good cyber hygiene reduces significant risks that come with security incidents such as data compromise and loss, operational interruptions and downtime, financial loss and government fines, damage to reputation, legal liability risks, and more. Furthermore, simple cybersecurity concepts such as least privilege can significantly reduce the impact of a malicious click by limiting the privileges allowed to the associated application or malware.

In other words, when something does go wrong, your cybersecurity hygiene makes the difference between the link you clicked doing nothing at all, or the beginning of a devastating compromise of you, your computer, and your company. This is because basic tenants, like the removal of administrative rights, can stop the injection and execution of malware since the malicious code does not have enough privileges to execute in the first place.

Here are some basic cybersecurity hygiene practices you can implement now to keep you safe even after you have clicked a malicious link:

1. Update your system and applications regularly. Either allow your operating system and apps to apply recommended security updates, or ensure your organization is applying them in a timely manner after public disclosure. This will help prevent exploitation of any known vulnerabilities associated with clicking an errant link or opening a malicious file.

2. Use an anti-virus solution and keep it up to date. Ensure your anti-virus solution is properly licensed, receiving updates, and periodically scanning your system for dormant malware or advanced persistent threats.

3. Interact with your computer as a standard user and not an administrator for daily activities. This concept of least privilege will thwart malware that needs administrative privileges to infect your computer. This one method is by far the most effective at stopping an attack and is recommended by cyber insurance carriers and regulatory compliance bodies alike.

4. Ditch your old computer. If your operating system is end of life, like Windows 7 or Windows 10 (as of October 2025), consider updating or replacing your system. An end-of-life system no longer receives security patches, and odds are the anti-virus vendor is no longer providing updates since it has been depreciated. It is just not a safe device to have on the Internet, and attackers know this. Vulnerabilities and exploits are easy targets since end users have no way of mitigating the risks. If you cannot afford to replace the hardware, and it is not compatible with a newer operating system, consider initiatives like Google Chrome OS Flex to modernize your operating system and stay protected.

Many other basic cybersecurity hygiene concepts are important to minimize risks like phishing schemes. They can include vulnerability and patch management and endpoint security solutions such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) and endpoint privilege management (EPM).

In an ideal scenario, when you identify a phishing email or visit a fraudulent website, based on your training, you will be able to recognize the potential threat. You’ll then close the web page or email and report the threat to your information security department for analysis and to prevent others from receiving the same content, and if needed, have your asset assessed for additional threats. As more devious tactics come into play, however, it can become more and more difficult to spot malicious intent in something as simple as a hyperlink. This is why good cybersecurity hygiene is so important.

Let’s walk through a malicious link and click scenario so we can see where good cybersecurity hygiene comes into play, and the impact it can have on the situation.

The scenario: You open a phishing email or visit a fraudulent website and click on a malicious link. The results could compromise you and your entire organization. What does this look like from a hygiene perspective?

As with every other area of technology, AI has affected the way in which bad actors create and use clickbait to trick users. Today’s AI algorithms can glean human emotions from social media, news articles, search engines, and more, then use this information to craft clickbait that taps into emotionally charged hot topics.

Not only does AI clickbait increase the chance that someone will fall for a phishing scheme, but it also spreads misinformation, making it harder for people to reach legitimate news.

Here are a few tips for avoiding AI clickbait:

• Double-check the information: Go to other known, trustworthy sources to see if a sensational headline is actually true. Avoid social media entries that navigate you to the comments for more information or additional URLs for details.

• Get to know common AI clickbait tactics: Look at where the URL is directing you. If it seems to be going away from the primary host’s website and is embedded in a banner versus the page’s text, chances are that it was not written by the primary website and could be hosting malicious content.

• Stay informed on the latest developments in AI and phishing: AI-generated clickbait will only continue to become more sophisticated and believable. Plus, organized cyber criminals and nation-states will likely continue to use it more and more as time goes on, with variations that prey on individuals using common social engineering techniques.

When it comes to clickbait phishing scams, cybercriminals are highly motivated to trick you into believing their malicious messages, and it can be easy to make a mistake. All it takes is one click on a bad link and the outcome can be anything from stealing your passwords to encrypting all your files (in the form of ransomware), or any number of other devastating results. However, with training to identify these fraudulent links, emails, and websites in the first place, and by following basic cybersecurity hygiene, you can mitigate most of the risk.

While this blog’s recommendations are not a 100% solution, these are the best things we can do to protect ourselves and our organizations if we do make a mistake. Our best recommendation is education to prevent an erroneous click, but when it does happen, good cybersecurity hygiene, including the removal of administrative privileges, will be your best defense.

Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) can help improve cybersecurity hygiene and protect users and organizations from simple mistakes (clickbait, malicious links, etc.) by removing admin rights and providing context-based application protection. Sign up for a demo, or contact sales for more information about how you can get started.

To gain in-depth current-state analysis of the vulnerabilities in your identity infrastructure, take our no-cost identity security risk assessment.

This blog was refreshed on June 13, 2025 to provide updated guidance and ensure alignment with current identity security strategies.