Imagine two fishermen catching fish on a lake. One is throwing a net and is catching a variety of fish, most of them small. Maybe he catches something big enough, but maybe not. The other fisherman, on the other hand, has a different approach. Instead of casting a net in the lake without much planning and hoping that he catches something useful to bring home to dinner, he brings a fishing rod with him. He even has a special bait because he doesn’t want to catch just any fish. He wants a particular one. A big one. Who do you think will eat better that evening? What is the Difference between Regular Phishing and Spear Phishing? This, in essence, is the difference between phishing and spear phishing. In 2012, according to Trend Micro , over 90% of all targeted cyber attacks were spear-phishing related. In regular phishing, the hacker sends emails at random to a wide number of email addresses. Just like our first fisherman friend with his net.