Executive impersonation on social media is at an all-time high as threat actors take advantage of AI to improve and scale their attacks. In Q3, accounts pretending to belong to high-ranking executives on social media climbed to more than 54% of total impersonation volume, surpassing brand attacks for the first time since Fortra began tracking this data. The volume and composition of these attacks...

Banks were targeted on social media more in Q2, after the largest spike in activity since 2021, according to Fortra’s PhishLabs. While cybercriminal focus on financial institutions remains high, the average number of social media attacks per business, per month in 2023 is trending lower than in 2022. In Q2 specifically, businesses experienced nearly 18 fewer attacks on social channels on average...

While there are an estimated 30,000 daily cyber attacks on business websites, there are roughly ten times as many attacks against social media accounts every single day, equating to roughly 1.4 billion accounts every month. Social media attacks and scams have become pervasive problems, with threat actors finding innovative new ways to deceive users and steal their information. While social media...

Social media attacks targeting businesses have jumped 12.2% in Q1 from the previous quarter, according to Fortra’s PhishLabs. Attacks on social channels are also trending higher than Q1 2022, with the average business experiencing more than 81 attacks per month. External platforms, such as social media , are widely used by cybercriminals to engage in fraud and distribute misinformation...

Social media attacks targeting organizations closed out 2022 nearly 19% higher than Q4 of 2021, according to Fortra’s PhishLabs. Social platforms continue to act as a hotbed for malicious activity, leaving organizations of all sizes vulnerable to impersonation and abuse. As of Q4, businesses can expect an average of 72.54 attacks on social media per month. PhishLabs analyzes hundreds of thousands...

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. LinkedIn. YouTube. Pinterest. Mastodon. The list goes on. Whether you love or loathe social media, these platforms have become integral to how we communicate as individuals and businesses. Cybercriminals have also taken note, embracing these communication channels wholeheartedly to reach vast audiences quickly, anonymously, and cheaply, successfully defrauding targets...

In Q3, the volume of social media attacks targeting the average business was 40.4% higher than the same time last year, according to the latest data from Fortra’s PhishLabs. Social media attack volume has grown significantly year-over-year with the average business in 2022 experiencing 84.5 malicious incidents per month versus 50.59 in 2021. Fortra analyzes hundreds of thousands of social media...

The financial industry continues to experience the largest volume of abuse among all industries on social media. In Q3 banks, credit unions, and other F.I.’s contributed to nearly three-quarters of all attacks on social platforms, with national banks alone more than tripling the volume of the top targeted non-financial, retail. The top threats to financial institutions on social media consist of...

In Q2, malicious attacks targeting organizations on social media have increased more than 20% over Q1, according to the latest Agari and PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. Agari and PhishLabs analyze hundreds of thousands of phishing and social media attacks every quarter to identify the top threats targeting enterprises, their brands, and their employees. In this post, we...

Social media attacks targeting enterprises have increased 105% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022, according to Agari and PhishLabs’ latest Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. Social media threat volume has consistently climbed quarter over quarter, as threat actors increasingly use social platforms to target business via fake pages, messaging, and advertisements. Every quarter, Agari and...

Impersonations of brands and executives on social media have grown more than 300% and 250% year-over-year, respectively, according to the Agari and PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . This highlights the overall increase in social media activity and ease of accessibility for bad actors to repurpose stolen trademarks and intellectual property (IP) for a variety of malicious...

This guest blog by Dr. Edward Amoroso, TAG Cyber, provides a high-level overview of modern advances in cyber threat intelligence and how the Fortra cybersecurity portfolio supports this important method for reducing information risk in enterprise at various levels of the intelligence process starting with data security. Three oft-misused words in cybersecurity are data, information, and...

Social media offers an important outline for people of all ages and walks of life to connect, share life experiences and post pictures of their breakfast. But oversharing - or not being wary of impostors - can lead to serious compromises in personal and professional security. In a press release on the report's findings , Phishlabs “enterprises must broaden their line of defense [in 2022,] starting...

Social Media attacks targeting enterprises increased 103% in 2021, according to P hishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . Social Media is rapidly becoming the threat channel of choice for criminals. The rapid expansion of consumer/business relationships through social platforms, coupled with less refined and controllable online security measures, makes social media a prime target...

Social media threats targeting enterprises more than doubled last year. Attacks on the retail industry specifically have grown, as threat actors are targeting victims with impersonation and counterfeit ad campaigns. Purchasing behavior is increasingly influenced by social media, making it an attractive vector for these kinds of campaigns. The tendency of social media users to consume information...

Social Media attacks targeting organizations increased 103% in 2021, according to PhishLabs’ Threat Trends & Intelligence Report. The February 2022 report uses hundreds of thousands of threats analyzed and mitigated by PhishLabs to identify the top phishing and social media attacks targeting enterprises, employees, and their brands, as well as determine emerging trends throughout the threat...

Attacks targeting enterprises on Social Media have increased 82% since January, according to PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . Threat actors are increasingly abusing Social Media to launch attacks, as lack of security vigilance among users and critical brand presence among organizations makes platforms a desirable way to engage in malicious activity and spoof legitimate...

Social media threats targeting enterprises have increased 47% since January 2021, according to PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . While the attack volume varies by industry, today the average organization is being targeted on social media with increasing frequency. Every quarter, PhishLabs analyzes and mitigates hundreds of thousands of phishing and social media attacks...

Brand threats have accounted for 68% of fraud attacks so far this year. Contrary to traditional cyber attacks, which are designed to compromise the infrastructure or circumvent controls, brand threats live outside of the organization’s control and compromise the reputation of your brand. Common types of brand misrepresentation include spoofed emails, social media scams, and fake mobile apps. The...

One piece of evidence that adds value to investigating social media threats is the threat actor’s chosen username. Usernames can hold meaning to the individual, and as a result provide useful information when expanding investigations to different social platforms. As we covered in our last OSINT post , connecting all known social media accounts to one user is a critical step in determining risk...