Scams have started to become more popular compared to before with multiple bad actors on the internet and the tools now widely available for them to pretend to be official entities. With that, a majority of these scams pretend to be some of the most established companies ever.
Bad Actors are Using the Names of Popular Brands to Try to Trick Users Into Giving Them Access to Their Accounts
According to the story by PC World, a large number of these scams actually pretend to be well-known names. This comes as most people usually fall for scams when they think that they legit come from an established company or brand.
The article highlights how Check Point, a security firm, has recently updated its list of the most popular brands that phishers are trying to use in order to gain access to the sensitive information of a user.
It was noted that in the last quarter, Microsoft has moved up from sitting in third place to being regarded as the brand mostly used among phishing attempts. The company was the most used brand when it came to trying to phish victims in the year's second quarter.
The Hackers Capitalize on the Sense of Urgency of the User Through Using Fake Alerts to Get Them to Click
The security firm, Check Point, notes that the increase is also mostly due to an extensive phishing campaign that had been alerting users that had Microsoft accounts that they had unusual activity spotted on their account.
These particular fake alerts have started to become more popular as the fraudsters reportedly capitalize on the urgency of the matter and concern of the user as a way for them to fall victim to these schemes.
For the worst possible cases, most people are still tempted to click on the particular links or files despite them seeming fraudulent. This is because of the sense of urgency and the fear that something bad would happen if the user doesn't click.
Some of the Most Popular Brands Being Used Include Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Others
Upon clicking the fraudulent alert links or files, the attackers could easily gain access to the users' accounts or computers. Google and Apple are two other companies that are now at the top of the list when it comes to the brands being used by phishers.
Check Point reported that 29% of phishing attempts tried to use Microsoft while 19.5% of them tried to use Google. Apple followed with 5.2% of the attacks trying to use its name and after that, there was Wells Fargo with 4.2%.
Other big names were also used in phishing attempts including Amazon, which represented 4% of the attacks, Walmart, which represented 3.9% of attacks, and Roblox, which represented 3.8% of the attacks. For other known brands, LinkedIn was reportedly used in 3% of attacks while Home Depot was used in 2.5% and last but not least, Facebook was used in 2.1% of attacks.
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