Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

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.

Social engineering has long been a popular tactic among cybercriminals. Relying exclusively on information security tools does not guarantee the safety of an IT infrastructure these days. It is critically important to enhance the knowledge of employees regarding information security threats. Specifically, there is often a pressing need to educate employees about phishing. But how could phishing awareness training go wrong, and what can be done about it?

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of an increase in tech support scams that attempt to trick users into sending cash via snail mail.

Microsoft was the most impersonated brand in phishing attacks during Q2, 2023, according to Check Point’s latest Brand Phishing Report.

The latest data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) ups the estimate for the cost of losses and exposure through business email compromise (BEC) attacks from 2013 through 2023. In the latest advisory from the IC3 entitled “Business Email Compromise: The $50 Billion Scam,” there was a 17% increase in losses from BEC attacks in 2022.

Cybercriminals are exploiting the introduction of “.ZIP” as a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) to launch phishing attacks, according to researchers at Fortinet. “Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for new opportunities and techniques to exploit, and the recent availability of '.ZIP' domains for public purchase has unfortunately created such an opportunity,” the researchers write.

In recent years, fake job hiring scams have become a common form of social engineering. Threat actors use these scams to steal money, launder money, commit identity theft, or carry out other fraudulent or illegal activities. The motives of threat actors behind fake job hiring scams vary. Some are simply looking to make a quick buck, while others are more interested in stealing personal information or committing identity theft.

The quantity of emails involved in scams and cyber attacks continues to grow as credential theft and response-based phishing persist as top attack variants. The ripple effect from cybercrime-as-a-service launching a few years back has reached critical mass, where we’re seeing significant increases in the percentage of emails that are either clearly determined to be malicious (7.7%) as well as those suspicious enough that users are recommended to not engage with (15.9%).