Resources

Blog

Dramatic Increase Detected in Impersonation Attacks on Social Media

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...
Blog

Vishing Attacks Are at an All-Time High, Report Finds

Vishing attacks have increased almost 550 percent over the last twelve months, according to Agari and PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . The May report uses hundreds of thousands of phishing and social media threats analyzed and mitigated by Agari and PhishLabs, both of which are part of the Fortra cybersecurity portfolio. By identifying and mitigating attacks targeting...
Blog

Why BitB Attacks are Concerning

PhishLabs has identified a Browser-in-the-Browser (BitB) campaign targeting financial institutions with a fake Office 365 (O365) authorization protocol. The attack is delivered via phishing email and redirects the victim to a website impersonating an O365 single sign-on (SSO) page. A BitB attack is a novel phishing technique that replicates pop-up windows used for SSO in an effort to steal login...
Blog

Qbot Payloads Dominate Q1

Qbot payloads targeting enterprises contributed to almost three quarters of all email-based malware since the beginning of 2022. Although reported malware activity among families continues to fluctuate dramatically from quarter to quarter, QBot reports in Q1 represent the highest volume of a single malware variety over the past 12 months. Phishing lures delivering payloads remain the primary...
Blog

Social Media as a Threat Channel

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...
Blog

What is the Fortra Value Proposition for Cybersecurity?

In this guest blog, Dr Ed Amoroso, CEO, Tag Cyber , provides a high-level overview of the Fortra cybersecurity portfolio value proposition based on a mapping of its component solution offerings to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) phases. Forty years ago, an engineer in Minnesota decided that computer costs for the IBM System/38 were getting too high. So, he began investigating and building...
Blog

Cybercrime Cost U.S. $6.9 Billion in 2021

Courtesy of Digital Guardian by Fortra. The FBI's annual look at phishing, scam, and personal data breach statistics is out. Like clockwork, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report (.PDF) is out, and with it, numbers that show a marked uptick in cybercrime over the past 365 days. Skimming through the report's 33 pages, it's hard not to notice the...
Blog

Understanding the What, How, and Why of DMARC

Courtesy of Agari by Fortra. You probably already know this, but it bears repeating: Email by itself is NOT secure; anyone can use someone else’s identity to send emails. In fact, email is the #1 way cyberattackers can target your customers and your email ecosystem. No brand is untouchable when it comes to attackers using or spoofing email domains to send spam, phishing attempts, malware, or...
Blog

Erratic Phishing Volume Increases 28% in 2021

Phishing site volume increased 28% over the course of 2021, according to PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . Attacks last year displayed increasingly volatile behavior on a month-to-month basis, often intermixed with a variety of attack vectors. Despite a lack of congruency, phishing unequivocally remains the most dominant attack method targeting organizations. Every quarter...
Blog

Average Organization Sees Two-Fold Increase in Social Media Attacks in 2021

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...
Blog

Vishing Volume Increases 554% in 2021

Hybrid Vishing attacks have increased 554% in volume, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . Response-Based attacks such as these, combined with Credential Theft and Malware Delivery, collectively represent the top online attack vector targeting corporate users. Every quarter, PhishLabs analyzes hundreds of thousands of phishing and social media attacks targeting...
Blog

Top Social Media Threats Targeting the Retail Industry

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...
Blog

Social Media Attacks Double in 2021 According to Latest PhishLabs Report

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...
Blog

Qbot, ZLoader Represent 89% of Payload Volume in Q4

Qbot and ZLoader payloads targeting enterprises contributed to almost 89% of email-based malware volume in Q4. Malware variants attributed to attacks continue to fluctuate from quarter to quarter, often dramatically, as criminal families combine or outsource operations to maximize their odds of lucrative campaigns. Qbot and ZLoader previously led payload volume in Q2 and Q1 (respectively) of 2021...
Blog

Stolen Card Data Leads Dark Web Threats

In Q3, more than 75% of threats observed on the Dark Web were related to stolen credit card and debit card data, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . While there are significant volumes of malicious activity targeting industries on the Dark Web , the extensive nature of credit card fraud makes this threat type the most pervasive. Every quarter, PhishLabs analyzes...
Blog

Social Media Attacks Increase 82%

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...
Blog

Despite their Simplicity, New Emotet Attacks Forecast Threatening Future

PhishLabs has recently observed attacks targeting enterprises with Emotet payloads for the first time since January , when coordinated efforts by authorities to disrupt operations led this family of threat actors to halt activity. Emotet’s primary function is providing malicious software initial access to compromised systems. It is one of the most widely distributed and well-connected malware...
Blog

Phishing Increases as Industries New and Old Face a Barrage of Threats

Phishing attacks targeting consumers during 2021 have increased nearly 32% from 2020, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . While trends have been erratic, multiple spikes in activity continue to make phishing the most dominant attack method on the threat landscape. Threat actors are experimenting with a variety of tactics to target enterprises with these attacks...
Blog

Vishing Hybrid, Response-Based Attacks on the Rise

Vishing attacks targeting corporate users have more than doubled for the second consecutive quarter, according to PhishLabs’ Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report . Response-Based attacks such as these are increasingly targeting corporate users and stand alongside email-based Credential Theft and Malware attacks to make up the top attack vector targeting enterprises. Every quarter...
Blog

Initial Access Brokers: Selling Entry into Your Network

Ransomware continues to grow as a thriving underground economy with limited risk and little barrier to entry. Ransomware attacks are supported by a robust ecosystem of dark web services, where many of the tasks needed to carry out an attack can be outsourced. These tasks are increasingly available and sold by threat actors who specialize in them. In this post, we take a look at Initial Access...