Phishing is almost like fishing; in both cases you need a bait, which lures the unsuspecting victim to bite on it. In a phishing attack, the bait is a compelling email, which appears to be a legitimate, genuine email. Phishing attacks are primarily classified into two- standard phishing attacks and spear phishing. Standard attacks can also be targeted at users within an organization or a network. Such attacks are mostly used to place malware on an internal network. The attackers thereby manage to bypass security systems in place and gain a foothold into an organizations network.”]
Source: https://hackercombat.com/knowledge-base/all-about-phishing-attacks/