Check Point’s researchers highlight Yahoo! as most imitated brand for email-based phishing, and Spotify as the most imitated for web-based phishing attempts.
Check Point Research’s new Brand Phishing Report for Q4 2019, highlights the brands which were most frequently imitated by criminals in their attempts to steal individuals’ personal information or payment credentials during Q4, which includes the busiest online shopping periods of the year.
In a brand phishing attack, criminals try to imitate the official website of a well-known brand by using a similar domain name or URL and web-page design to the genuine site. The link to the fake website can be sent to targeted individuals by email or text message, redirected during web browsing, or triggered from a fraudulent mobile application. The fake website often contains a form intended to steal users’ credentials, payment details or other personal information.
Top phishing brands in Q4 2019 – The top brands are ranked by their overall appearance in brand phishing attempts: Facebook (related to 18% of all brand phishing attempts globally), Yahoo (10%), Netflix (5%), PayPal (5%), Microsoft (3%), Spotify (3%), Apple (2%), Google (2%), Chase (2%) and Ray-Ban (2%).
“Cybercriminals are using a variety of attack vectors to trick their intended victims into giving up personal information and login credentials or transferring money. Although this is often done using spam emails, we have also seen attackers obtain credentials to email accounts, study their victim for weeks and craft a targeted attack against partners and customers to steal money. Over the last two years, incidences of this type of attack have spiked with the increased use of cloud-based email, which makes it easier for criminals to disguise themselves as a trusted party. Phishing will continue to be a growing threat in 2020,” said Maya Horowitz, Director, Threat Intelligence and Research, Check Point Software Technologies.
