Email-based phishing attacks surge 464% in 1st half of 2023: Report

New Delhi, June 30 In the first half of 2023 alone, the number of email-based phishing attacks has surged 464 per cent globally when compared to 2022, a new report said on Friday.

According to Swiss technology company Acronis, there has also been a 24 per cent increase in attacks per organisation over the same frame.

In the first half of 2023, the report observed a 15 per cent increase in the number of files and URLs per scanned email, plus cybercriminals have also tapped into the burgeoning large language model (LLM)-based AI market, using platforms to create, automate, scale, and improve new attacks through active learning.

"The volume of threats in 2023 has surged relative to last year, a sign that criminals are scaling and enhancing how they compromise systems and execute attacks," said Candid Wuest, Acronis VP of Research.

Moreover, the report showed that phishing remained the most popular form of stealing credentials, making up 73 per cent of all attacks, with business email compromise (BEC) scams making up 15 per cent and malware comprising an additional 11 per cent.

The LockBit gang was responsible for major data breaches.

In Q1 2023, about 30.3 per cent of all received emails were spam and 1.3 per cent contained malware or phishing links.

There were 809 publicly mentioned ransomware cases in Q1 2023, with a 62 per cent spike in March over the monthly average of 270 cases, the report mentioned.

"To address the dynamic threat landscape, organisations need agile, comprehensive, unified security solutions that provide the necessary visibility to understand attacks, simplify context, and provide efficient remediation of any threat, whether it may be malware, system vulnerability, and everything in between," said Wuest.

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