10 Shocking Phishing Facts

Are you doing enough to protect your business and yourself from phishing attacks? If you think you aren’t likely to be a victim, we recommend thinking again. Read below for 10 shocking phishing facts you may or may not know–and how these facts may apply to your own vulnerability against a phishing attack.

1. 64% of organizations have experienced a phishing attack in the past year.
2. Phishers often use emails to lure victims to third party sites in order to collect private information such as social security numbers. Threats can also be sent via SMS text.
3. 95% of phishing emails from brands pretend to be from Amazon, eBay or banks.
4. Fake URLs often lead individuals to websites asking for personal data. Common methods of fake URLs include changing links to look-alikes (i.e. replacing “I” with “I”), phishing pop-ups on top of real site pages and phishing techniques that cause browsers to display the real URL.
5. 65% of attacker groups used spear phishing as the primary infection vector
6. Many security vendors and independent organizations track phishing incidents in near-real-time. PK Tech does something similar with our monthly Hacker Tracker updates. You can check out last month’s here.
7. 29% of breaches involved use of stolen credentials.
8. Phishers often exploit domain name resolution, redirecting requests for real URLs to phishing sites. Malware has the ability to edit a victim’s hosts file to substitute phishing IPs or edit DNS settings to redirect the user to a bogus DNS server.
9. A challenge with eliminating phishing websites that a single phishing attempt can often involve dozens of unique domains and hundreds of unique URLs.
10. 59% of phishing attacks in the Americas relate to finance.

The statistics don’t lie. You and your company are at risk for a cybersecurity attack. PK Tech can help you take preventative measures to protect individual employees and your business from unnecessary cybersecurity breaches. Get in touch with us today. 

References: eSecurityPlanet.com, phishingbox.com, adeliarisk.com  

If you would like a quote or evaluation for IT services, don’t hesitate to reach out to PK Tech here: contact PK Tech. 

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