PHISHLABS by HelpSystems, a leading provider of Digital Risk Protection solutions, today released their Quarterly Threat Trends and Intelligence Report. Phishing remains the dominant attack vector for bad actors, growing 31.5 percent over 2020. Notably, attacks in September 2021 were more than twice as high as the previous year.
John LaCour, Founder and CTO of PhishLabs, said: “While we saw a drop early this summer in phishing volume, threat actors didn’t take the whole summer off. Attacks have been on the rise since July and surged in September. If these trends continue, many IT security teams will find themselves dealing with a deluge of threats over the holidays.”
Since January, the average number of Social Media attacks per target climbed steadily, up 82 percent year-to-date. Vishing incidents more than doubled in number for the second consecutive quarter, suggesting a shift in tactics as threat actors seek to evade email security controls.
In addition, the sale of Personally Identifiable Information accounted for 12 percent of dark web threats and was primarily made up of threat actors marketing employee email addresses to black market buyers. In 56 percent of PII sales, chat-based services were used to market the data.
John LaCour continued: “The continued climb in social media threats makes it imperative that businesses prioritise visibility across platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. As seasonal hiring ramps up for the holidays, the staffing industry in particular needs to be prepared to deal with online impersonation and other scams.”
PhishLabs analysed and mitigated hundreds of thousands of attacks targeting enterprise brands and employees in the Q3. The report uses this intelligence to determine key trends shaping the threat landscape
