Phishing attacks have skyrocketed in 2017, according to the new September 2017 Webroot Quarterly Threat Trends Report.
On average, there are 46,000 new phishing sites created each day, which comes out to nearly 1.4 million a month.
In May, an astonishing 2.3 million were created.
That’s more than three times the amount included in the report released in December 2016, which noted 13,000 new phishing sites each day.
“Phishing emails see increased impact by using social media to tailor their attacks to the individual target—sometimes even senior executives—with messages that are likely to resonate with the individual,” according to the report. “They employ remarkably realistic web pages that are difficult, if not impossible, to find using web crawlers. They trick victims into providing credentials that can compromise their accounts, then access other accounts where credentials have been reused.”
On average the sites are active for just four to eight hours, in hopes of avoiding detection. Apparently that’s plenty long enough to do damage.
The top 10 impersonated websites during the first half of 2017, according to the report, include:
- Google, 35%
- Chase, 15%
- Dropbox, 13%
- PayPal, 10%
- Facebook, 7%
- Apple, 6%
- Yahoo, 4%
- Wells Fargo, 4%
- Citi, 3%
- Adobe, 3%
In conclusion, “while Google, Chase, Dropbox, and PayPal are all at high risk of being impersonated, all businesses should be aware of the dire consequences associated with phishing attacks,” the report states.
Phishing attacks are the “number one cause of cybersecurity breaches, and are a growing threat to organizations around the world,” according to the report.
Indeed, according to Verizon, “phishing was found in 90 percent of breaches and incidents.”
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