Vade, an organisation providing threat detection and response, recently published its annual “Phishers’ Favorites” report for 2023. In its list of the top 20 most impersonated brands in phishing attacks, the Facebook brand came top, followed by Microsoft. Other brands well known to UK audiences, included Amazon, PayPal, Instagram, Google, WhatsApp and Netflix.
Phishing attacks using social media brands saw the largest increase rising by more than 113% year-on-year. Alongside the rise in phishing using social media brands, financial services was the most impersonated sector with a number of banks, credit card providers, and PayPal in the top 20 impersonated list.
The 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon highlighted that human error remains the leading cause of data breaches with 74% of all breaches associated with such errors. Phishing awareness training must be at the front line of cyber defences.
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