"Zscaler ThreatLabz Finds Alarming Growth in Phishing Attacks"

A new threat analysis report released by the cloud security provider Zscaler reveals patterns in the growth of phishing attacks in 2022. Based on data including 280 million transactions and an analysis of eight billion attempted attacks, the report found a 47 percent increase in phishing attacks in 2022. Attackers are using newer tools, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), to strike organizations with inadequate security mechanisms. Phishing scams are a growing problem, and threat actors' methods are becoming more complex, thus making them more difficult to detect and thwart, according to the report. The number of attacks against the education sector has increased more than fivefold. Attackers have also shifted away from exploits associated with the coronavirus pandemic. According to the report, COVID-themed attacks accounted for 7.2 percent of phishing schemes in 2021, but just 3.7 percent in 2022. Additionally, the US remains the most targeted country for phishing attacks, a position it has traditionally held, with more than 65 percent of all phishing attempts occurring in the country. Some of the most commonly used techniques are SMS phishing, which applies voicemail-related phishing (vishing) to trick victims into opening malware attachments. Another commonly encountered approach is the use of sophisticated adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attacks that can help hackers circumvent multi-factor authentication (MFA) security. This article continues to discuss key findings from Zscaler's phishing report. 

MeriTalk reports "Zscaler ThreatLabz Finds Alarming Growth in Phishing Attacks"