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1Phishing Site Study Reveals Why These Cyber-Scams Pervade the Web
Phishing is a security problem for organizations worldwide, according to a report from security firm PhishLabs. The company released its “2017 Phishing Trends and Intelligence Report” Feb. 7, providing insight into the evolving phishing landscape. A major security threat, Phishing is the practice of using a variety of deceitful “social engineering” approaches to con people—particularly corporate employees—into revealing passwords, financial data or sensitive personal information. PhishLabs R.A.I.D. (Research, Analysis and Intelligence Division) analyzed about 1 million confirmed phishing sites in 2016. The report found that 91 percent of phishing attacks targeted five industry verticals: financial institutions, cloud storage, webmail, payment services and ecommerce companies. Across those industries, phishing attack volume grew an average of 33 percent in 2016.
2Financial Institutions Are the Most Targeted
3More Phishing Attacks Hit Cloud Storage
42016 Phishing Volume Spiked Mid-Year
PhishLabs found that phishing volume in 2016 spiked in the middle of the year, bucking the trend of attacks surging at the end of the year during the holiday season. PhishLabs attributes the mid-year phishing spike to attacks related to Brexit (the British exit from the European Union) as well as a surge in virtual web-server compromises.
5Virtual Server Attacks Accelerate Phishing Risks
6Phishing Attacks Use Different Top-Level Domains
7The U.S is the Top Target
8There Are Plenty of Phishing Sites in the U.S.
While phishing sites can be hosted anywhere in the world, 59 percent were located in the United States during 2016.