Business-related applications like Zoom, Microsoft, and DocuSign are the most commonly spoofed services in phishing attacks, according to a new report from GreatHorn. Business apps made up 45% of all impersonation phishing attacks. Social media-related phishing attacks accounted for 34% of attacks, while consumer services like Amazon and PayPal made up 20%.
The researchers also found that while the total volume of daily phishing attempts has decreased compared to last year, the number of successful phishing attacks has increased. The researchers attribute this to attackers getting better at the social engineering aspect, as well as getting their emails past security filters.
“Though daily occurrences of phishing attacks have decreased from 36% to 25% between 2020 and 2021, weekly and monthly phishing attacks have increased from 28% to 42% and 11% to 17%, respectively,” GreatHorn says. “These attacks are increasingly difficult to detect as cybercriminals become more sophisticated and targeted in their attacks – advancing beyond the ‘batch and blast’ methodology to social engineering phishing campaigns. As a result of this, the quantity of phishing attempts being experienced by organizations may have decreased daily, but the impact of those campaigns that bypass traditional email security is increasing. As a result of increasing attacks, email security has risen to one of the top 3 IT security projects for 2021 among the organizations surveyed.”
The researchers note that a primary concern of most respondents regarding email security products was that the product would miss phishing attacks.
“Missing phishing attacks remains the top issue in current email security solutions with 39% of respondents noting this as a top concern in both 2020 and 2021,” the researchers write. They add, “Fewer organizations report being ‘satisfied’ with their current email security solution, decreasing from 76% in 2020 to 53% in 2021. On the other hand, organizations reporting their email security solution was ‘good enough’ increased from 19% in 2020 to 36% in 2021.”
New-school security awareness training can provide your organization with an essential layer of defense by teaching your employees how to recognize phishing attacks.
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