Microsoft, PayPal and Google Top the Brands Hit by Phishing

Email phishing continues to be the most common method of attack, and according to new research from Comodo Cybersecurity Microsoft, PayPal and Google are the top three brands most targeted by phishing. In its Global Threat Report 2018 Q3, researchers in Comodo’s threat research lab found that phishing represents one of every 100 emails received by enterprises, with 19% of those attacks targeting Microsoft, followed by 17% targeting PayPal and 9.7% going after Google. According to the report, 63% of the emails a business receives are clean, while 24% are spam, and only 1.3% of business emails are phishing attempts. Of those, there were three subject lines that were used with great frequency. In 40% of the phishing emails examined, the subject line was related to PayPal and read, “Your account will be locked.” Another 10% of phishing emails targeted FedEx and read “Info,” while the third-most popular headline, “August Azure Newsletter,” appeared in 8% of the phishing emails and targeted Microsoft.