In Q1, PhishLabs analyzed and mitigated hundreds of thousands of
phishing attacks that targeted corporate users. In this post, we break down these attacks and shed light on the phishing emails that are making it into corporate inboxes.
Phishing is on the rise. PhishLabs identified 47% more phishing sites in Q1 of 2021 than there were in Q1 of 2020. This trend is continuing as Q2 attacks are also up significantly year-over-year.
Phishing attacks in Q1 have increased 47% compared to last year, according to PhishLabs newly released Q1 2021 Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. The report uses data collected from hundreds of thousands of attacks analyzed and mitigated by PhishLabs in Q1 to identify top threats targeting enterprise brands, and determine emerging trends throughout the threat landscape.
Threat actors routinely impersonate brands as part of their attacks. Brand abuse can occur anywhere online, and impersonating a reputable company automatically gives credibility to a threat that might otherwise be instantly identified as suspicious. Because brand impersonation is so broadly used across the threat landscape, security teams need to have complete visibility into the top brand threats targeting their organization. They also need efficient workflows that extract actionable intelligence from potential brand threats.
Topics: Digital Brand Protection
Digital brand protection is defined as comprehensive intelligence sourcing and mitigation of external threats targeting your brand.
Digital brand abuse can occur anywhere online. Therefore, it is necessary to have proactive and comprehensive detection capabilities across digital channels to prevent revenue loss and reputation damage.
Topics: Brand Abuse, Brand Protection, Digital Brand Protection
In 2020, ransomware attacks in the U.S.
increased 139% year-over-year
. Attacks are more strategic, demands are higher, and new tactics have emerged that leave victims experiencing the pressure to pay. Organizations that are affected by ransomware believe they are left with one of two choices: Refuse to meet ransom demands and risk the loss of data or, pay the ransom and hazard it released anyway.
Topics: Ransomware
PhishLabs is monitoring the increasing number of mobile applications targeted by the relatively new Alien Mobile Banking Trojan. Alien, a fork of Cerberus, continues to evade Google’s malware detection and is targeting a broad spectrum of both financial and non-financial apps. So far, Alien has been connected with 87 new brands previously not targeted by Cerberus.
Topics: Malware, Banking Trojan, Mobile
Malicious payloads delivered via email phishing continue to drive access to sensitive infrastructures and result in data compromise for enterprises. In Q1 of 2021, attack methods including malware campaigns have contributed to a
564% increase in individuals affected by a data leak, as well as a 12% increase in publicly-reported compromise.
Topics: Malware, Ransomware
Microsoft Office 365 phish are some of the most common threats that reach end users inboxes. Over the course of a two-year period, PhishLabs has observed that O365 phish have accounted for more than half of all reported phish by enterprises - by a significant margin.
To stage a phishing site, cybercriminals have several options. They can use a legitimate domain that has been compromised, they can abuse free hosting services, or they can register their own domain. Understanding the prevalence of each scenario is fundamental to detecting and mitigating these threats as early in the attack process as possible (including before they’ve been launched). PhishLabs recently analyzed more than 100,000 phishing sites to establish how many used compromised domains, free hosting, or maliciously-registered domains.
Topics: Domains