New data from the Anti-Phishing Working Group shows cybercriminals are stepping on the gas, focusing phishing attacks on credential theft and response-based scams.
Last quarter was a busy time for cybercriminals, according to APWG’s Q4 2021 Phishing Activity Trends Report. In total, nearly 900,000 phishing attacks took place – a 23% increase over Q3 2021 and over three times that of Q1 2020. Last December saw the highest number of attacks ever recorded at just under 317,000.
According to the report, cybercriminals are shifting to more social engineering-based attacks over malware-based:
- 8% of attacks were focused on stealing credentials
- 6% of attacks were BEC attacks, gift card scams, and other response-based scams
- Only 9.6% of attacks involved the delivery of malware
The most targeted industries continue to be SaaS, Financial, eCommerce/Retail, Social Media, and Payments.
It also appears that ransomware attacks are getting more effective (which may be a result of the focus on stolen credentials), as the number of companies falling victim to these attacks rose 36% in Q4 alone and was the highest number of successful attacks in the last two years.
Phishing is not just remaining a problem for organizations today, it’s a ever-growing concern that should have every business’ focus as a primary source of risk. Security solutions provide solid coverage for most phishing attacks, but for that small percentage of attacks that make it to the Inbox, it’s only Security Awareness Training that is going to be the difference between a protected organization and an enabled attack.
