Perception Point’s team has identified a 356% increase in the number of advanced phishing attacks attempted by threat actors in 2022. Overall, the total number of attacks increased by 87%, highlighting the growing threat that cyber attacks now pose to organizations.
Phishing attacks increase
Throughout 2022, Perception Point’s team analyzed several concerning trends. Firstly, malicious actors continue to gain widespread access to new tools and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) which simplify and automate the process of generating attacks.
Consequently, they are increasingly able to effortlessly launch sophisticated attacks – many of which are characterized by social engineering as well as evasion techniques, such as URL redirection, which make it difficult for the victim to identify them as malicious.
The team also identified how the threat landscape is changing due to the rapid adoption of new cloud collaboration apps, cloud storage, and services for productivity and external collaboration.
Threat actors have pivoted their attack toolkits, reaching beyond email and web browsers to these apps and services. While email and the browser remain the leading attack vectors, 2022 saw a 161% surge in attacks on all other channels, such as cloud storage and collaboration apps.
Phishing proved to be the most pervasive threat, accounting for 67.4% of all attacks. 2022 also saw a significant increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, which grew by 83%.
BEC attacks, in which cybercriminals impersonate legitimate businesses and leverage social engineering techniques as well as thread
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