Phishing attacks from last year have broken previous records from the past years. Experts claimed that the emergence of phishing-as-a-service methods and new attack vectors caused this massive upsurge of the attacks.
Some researchers also think that the low barrier of entry contributed to the widespread of similar attacks. Threat actors take advantage of current trends such as cryptocurrency and Covid-19 to deceive targets into giving their critical information.
A new tally from a cybersecurity analyst revealed that phishing campaigns showed a 30% growth in attacks compared to the previous year. They also observed about 900,000 million attacks worldwide in 2021.
The analysts pointed out that numerous vectors for phishing, such as productivity tools, social media platforms, financial institutions, shopping sites, illegal streaming sites, and logistics services, became the perfect tools to bait targets.
Retail and wholesale sectors were the community’s most targeted and affected branches, experiencing a 400% increase in phishing campaigns last year.
The US then suffered the most phishing attacks than any other country, which experienced about 60% of all attacks worldwide. The following frequently targeted countries are the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Singapore.
Researchers also indicated that SMS phishing was one of the most used attack methods by the threat actors last year. Many expect it to be continuously used by malicious entities this year.
Phishing-as-a-Service may be the following most abused form of threat that attacks any entity.
Since phishing has been the long-time partner of sophisticated threat actors in targeting and conducting their hacking operations, the emergence of phishing-as-a-service paved the way for wannabe hackers to operate their attacks.
The availability of these newly designed phishing tools can enable even the most unskilled cybercriminal to conduct simple and effective phishing attacks.
Researchers noted that collaborative organisations are bombarded with numerous phishing emails every day. This detail implies that employees, regardless of their position, must be aware and knows how to identify the most common phishing techniques from phishing distributors. Organisations should enhance this ability to mitigate any chances of attacks in the future.
