"Vishing Makes Phishing Campaigns Three-Times More Successful"

IBM's security researchers have found that phishing emerged as the number one threat vector in 2021.  The researchers revealed that phishing overtook vulnerability exploitation as the top pathway for compromise globally last year, accounting for 41% of initial access attempts, up from 33% in 2020.  Interestingly, the researchers stated that click rates for the average targeted phishing campaign increased almost three-fold, from 18% to 53% when phone phishing (vishing) was also used by threat actors.  In the UK, an estimated 80% of consumers received a scam call or text over the summer of 2021.   The researchers at IBM highlighted business email compromise (BEC) and ransomware actors as particularly prolific users of phishing during 2021.  The researchers noted that despite dropping into second place, vulnerability exploitation remains a significant threat to organizations.  The number of incidents using this as an infection vector surged by 33% year-on-year in 2021.  

Infosecurity reports: "Vishing Makes Phishing Campaigns Three-Times More Successful"