The latest brand phishing report from Check Point Research (CPR), a company that has been at the forefront of cybersecurity solutions globally, revealed that DHL is the brand most imitated by cybercriminals in their attempts to steal personal information and banking credentials, during the months of October, November and December 2021.
According to the investigation, 23% of all brand phishing attempts were related to the global shipping and logistics company, surpassing Microsoft, which was the leader in the previous quarter of the top most used brands in phishing attacks, with only 20% of attempts at the end of 2021.
New to the report is the inclusion of FedEx in the list of the top 10 most imitated brands, “reflecting attempts to take advantage of the festive season and the generalization of online shopping, forced by the pandemic, which continued to be a fundamental concern”, says CPR.
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It should also be noted that, according to what is reported by CPR, there was an emerging trend from the previous quarter, with social networks consolidating their position among the three sectors most imitated in phishing attempts: o Facebook is no longer part of the ranking of the 10 brands most susceptible to imitation, but the WhatsApp moved from 6th to 3rd position, now accounting for 11% of all phishing attempts. O LinkedIn went from 8th to 5th place, now appearing in 8% of all attacks of this type.
"This quarter, for the first time, we saw global logistics company DHL top the ranking of brands most likely to be imitated, presumably derived from the attempt to capitalize on the growing number of online shoppers this festive season, potentially new and vulnerable to this type of attacks . Older users in particular, as they are typically less tech-oriented than younger generations, are shopping online for the first time and may not know what to expect when it comes to confirmation emails or delivery updates.”, says in a statement, Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Group manager at Check Point Software.
