Cybercrime Undercover: Phishing Attacks Imitating Famous Brands Proliferate

Phishing Attacks Imitating Famous Brands Are Fooling Staffers Into Making Costly Mistakes.

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Everyone’s hustling a little more these days as we all try to overcome recent challenges — even cybercriminals. An essential part of any cybercrime gang’s hustle is innovation. Bad actors are always looking for fresh ways to get employees to click on and interact with their messages, and one clever ruse that they’ve been able to slip under the radar of many people (and many phishing defense systems that aren’t Graphus) is phishing attacks imitating famous brands.

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the fact that we’re all handling more email and more remote tasks these days to launch a barrage of phishing attacks. Many of these attacks are disguised as routine communications from third-party service providers and retailers. They’ve had great success with some ploys by crafting phishing emails that imitate government agencies, legitimate charities, charitable programs and more, including the World Health Organization, a popular trick for circulating ransomware-laden COVID-19 maps.

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The Most Imitated Brands of 2020

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But what brands did they choose to imitate the most? Brands that businesses trust and brands that employees interact with regularly. The list of the most imitated brands of 2020 clearly illustrates the social engineering effort that goes into cybercrime. 

1. Microsoft (45 percent)
2. DHL (18 percent)
3. LinkedIn (6 percent)
4. Amazon (5 percent)
5. Rakuten (4 percent)
6. Ikea (3 percent)
7. Google (2 percent)
8. PayPal (2 percent)
9. Chase (2 percent)
10. Yahoo (1 percent)

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Don’t Get Caught by Phishing Attacks Imitating Famous Brands

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A 660 percent increase in the volume of phishing email means that your staffers are seeing more suspicious messages. Choosing to add an affordable automated phishing defense solution like Graphus to your security stack is a smart move in the fight against phishing. Making the most out of the capabilities of solutions like Passly and BullPhish ID is also a smart move that helps build a powerful defense against phishing-related cybercrime. 

BullPhish ID is the ideal security awareness and phishing resistance training solution for businesses of every size. We’ve just updated its features to make it even stronger, including adding new user-friendly training portals and customizable phishing simulation campaign materials to make training painless and effective. SEE THE NEW BULLPHISH ID>>

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Passly is an essential safeguard against phishing too. By preventing unauthorized entry into your systems through multifactor authentication safeguards, a password phished from an unwary employee isn’t enough to cause a disaster. Plus, single sign-on gives your IT team the ability to quickly quarantine a potentially compromised user account, preventing it from accessing anything else.

Phishing threats like ransomware aren’t slowing down. If anything, cybercriminals are growing bolder and more creative in their attacks. Let us help you make sure that you’ve got all the right defenses in place to protect your business from dangers like phishing attacks imitating famous brands.

Contact ID Agent today for an assessment of your security needs and help to get strong defenses in place, or watch videos of our solutions in action if you’re not quite ready to talk to anyone yet.

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