Phishing Attacks Are Top Cyber Crime Threat, Easier Than Ever to Create and Deploy
This post was researched by IBM X-Force's Vio Onut, PhD, and Chenta Lee.
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Why
is one of cyber crime’s oldest threats still going strong? The Anti-Phishing
Working Group (APWG) reports that January 2021 marked an unprecedented high in
the APWG’s records, with over 245,771 phishing attacks in one month.
IBM
X-Force’s 2021 Threat Intelligence Index found that phishing led to 33% of
cyber attacks organizations had to deal with. Phishing, an online threat that
emerged in the mid-1990s, today continues to be a top cyber crime practice that
impacts brands and companies and is a prolific initial compromise vector in
nation-state attacks.
What
makes phishing so pervasive? Why is it still successful? Cyber criminals have
been developing their abilities over time. Many attacks are more sophisticated,
harder to detect and, most of all, easier for criminals to create and deploy at
scale. Phishing attacks can cause losses to the tune of $17,700 per minute and
are among the leading threats. An annual FBI report calculated losses of over
$4 billion in 2020 from internet crimes, with phishing attacks leading the way.
Evidently, phishing is a rampant threat that continues to plague consumers,
companies and nations, and one that requires ongoing education and mitigation
efforts.
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