It’s not news that cybercrime is a constant battle—large enterprises and small businesses everywhere are susceptible to a myriad of advanced email threats and socially engineered attacks, such as executive or brand impersonation. According to IC3’s Internet Crime Report, over $44 million in losses in 2021 were a direct result of malicious phishing and advanced email scams. Despite billions having...

The financial services cybersecurity environment is extremely complex, with a dizzying number of often-overlapping regulations, ongoing threats, and understaffed teams trying to manage it all. Despite paying significant attention to security, many organizations continue to be the targets of advanced persistent threats, fraud, sophisticated phishing campaigns, and other bold efforts to access the...

Vishing reports in Q1 2022 increased nearly 550% over Q1 2021, according to Agari and PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. While these Response-Based attacks have recently displayed stunning numbers, malicious emails as a whole are growing steadily, and represent the top online attack vector targeting corporate users. Malicious emails are delivered primarily in the form of...

Vishing attacks targeting corporate users have more than doubled for the second consecutive quarter, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. Response-Based attacks such as these are increasingly targeting corporate users and stand alongside email-based Credential Theft and Malware attacks to make up the top attack vector targeting enterprises. Every quarter,...

Ransomware continues to grow as a thriving underground economy with limited risk and little barrier to entry. Ransomware attacks are supported by a robust ecosystem of dark web services, where many of the tasks needed to carry out an attack can be outsourced. These tasks are increasingly available and sold by threat actors who specialize in them. In this post, we take a look at Initial Access...

Cloned and spoofed mobile applications can damage a brand’s reputation and compromise user data. Fake mobile apps are widely available on both third-party and official app stores and rely heavily on brand impersonation to build trust and drive downloads. Many mobile users lack the security posture normally practiced on desktops, leaving devices vulnerable to compromise. Fake Apps Cloned Mobile...

Phishing volume continues to outpace 2020 by 22%, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. Every quarter, PhishLabs analyzes hundreds of thousands of phishing and social media attacks targeting enterprises to identify key trends in the threat landscape. In this piece we take a look at phishing volume, industries targeted, and how attacks are being staged. 2021...

Cybercriminals continue to heavily abuse domains to launch phishing attacks. PhishLabs’ analysis of Q1 phishing attacks has found that: 96% used Legacy Generic (gTLD) or Country Code (ccTLD) Top-level Domains Almost 83% abused HTTPS Domain Validated (DV) Certificates were used 94.5% of the time For this analysis, PhishLabs looked at three categories of TLDs: Legacy gTLDs, ccTLDs,...

In Q1, PhishLabs analyzed and mitigated hundreds of thousands of phishing attacks that targeted corporate users. In this post, we break down these attacks and shed light on the phishing emails that are making it into corporate inboxes. Threats Found in Corporate Inboxes Credential Theft Credential theft attacks continue to be the most prolific threats observed in corporate inboxes....

Phishing is on the rise. PhishLabs identified 47% more phishing sites in Q1 of 2021 than there were in Q1 of 2020. This trend is continuing as Q2 attacks are also up significantly year-over-year. Last year, phishing spiked in late Q1 and Q2 as threat actors took advantage of pandemic-related fear and uncertainty. This year, we are seeing an even greater increase in attacks. ...

Threat actors routinely impersonate brands as part of their attacks. Brand abuse can occur anywhere online, and impersonating a reputable company automatically gives credibility to a threat that might otherwise be instantly identified as suspicious. Because brand impersonation is so broadly used across the threat landscape, security teams need to have complete visibility into the top brand...

In 2020, ransomware attacks in the U.S. increased 139% year-over-year. Attacks are more strategic, demands are higher, and new tactics have emerged that leave victims experiencing the pressure to pay. Organizations that are affected by ransomware believe they are left with one of two choices: Refuse to meet ransom demands and risk the loss of data or, pay the ransom and hazard it released...

PhishLabs is monitoring the increasing number of mobile applications targeted by the relatively new Alien Mobile Banking Trojan. Alien, a fork of Cerberus, continues to evade Google's malware detection and is targeting a broad spectrum of both financial and non-financial apps. So far, Alien has been connected with 87 new brands previously not targeted by Cerberus. Cerberus versus Alien...

Microsoft Office 365 phish are some of the most common threats that reach end users inboxes. Over the course of a two-year period, PhishLabs has observed that O365 phish have accounted for more than half of all reported phish by enterprises - by a significant margin. Today, we are highlighting a recent O365 campaign, and breaking down the techniques used to enhance the threat actor's odds of...

Impersonation enables threat actors to manipulate victims into disclosing sensitive information as well as enhance their ability to commit fraud. An organization's name, logo, or messaging can be incorporated into almost any threat type, making it an easy and versatile element of a cyber attack. Impersonation is an especially difficult technique to defend against because of its diverse range of...

App downloads fueled by COVID-19 lockdowns leapt to 37.5 billion in Q2 of this year, and collective global app usage is surging. Android users' screen time stands out significantly, with an increase of 25% above the weekly average from the previous year. As apps continue to be an integral part of how we conduct business and perform sensitive tasks, bad actors are using fake and unethical apps...

PhishLabs is monitoring a multi-stage phishing campaign that impersonates government entities and telecoms to target financial institutions and their customers. The threat actor behind the attacks has been designated Royal Ripper. The initial stage of the attack harvests personal information and the sort code of the victim's bank. It then uses the sort code to redirect the victim to a second...

On Tuesday afternoon, dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked to promote cryptocurrency scams. Threat actors took over the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, and many others. Corporate Twitter accounts were also hijacked, including those belonging to cryptocurrency companies. What does this mean for enterprises and their security teams? Threat actors...

Since 2015, PhishLabs has and continues to track how threat actors abuse HTTPS or SSL certs. In particular, threat actors often use HTTPS on their phishing sites to add a layer of legitimacy, better mimic the target site in question, and reduce being flagged or blocked from some browsers. Last year, threat actors hit a significant milestone in this usage when more than 50% of phishing sites...

As enterprise workforces continue to transition to remote environments, online file sharing and cloud storage tools are becoming a frequent, if not necessary means of collaboration. While abusing these types of platforms is nothing new to threat actors, the lures they use are now taking advantage of the novel coronavirus. The two examples below demonstrate how. We are providing ongoing...