Phishing Email Attack Numbers “Decline” While Malware Volumes Increase 15%

New data focused on the first half of the year shows some anomalies. Phishing attacks are slowing down… that is, until you dive into the details.

I can’t remember the last time I posted a headline stating that phishing numbers were down; that’s because we haven’t seen this trend occur in a number of years. But new data from Vade Secure’s H1 2023 Phishing and Malware Report shows an interesting outlier that skews a high-level view of the data.

If you were to compare the total phishing numbers for Q1 and Q2 of this year, you’d see a material decline - 562.5 million in Q1 vs. 180.4 million in Q2. Great news, right?

Unfortunately, wrong.

When you look at the monthly data, a clearer picture begins to emerge:

Source: Vade Secure

January was a major anomaly – accounting for 488.5 million messages. To put this single month in perspective, January of this year was more than the entirety of H1 2022! The clearer trend is that of February through June – a steady upward trend

Another perspective on the last six months is the volume of malware threats:

Source: Vade Secure

According to the data, Q2 saw an increase over Q1 by 15%. And, as you can see, the general trend remains up and to the right, despite some outlier highs (April) and lows (May).

So, despite the seemingly “good” news, we’re still seeing phishing attacks steadily growing, making it imperative to include Security Awareness Training as part of your preventative strategy against cyber attacks.