Phishing emails are known to be the oldest trick in the hacking industry and these emails have been in use for almost a decade now but even after so much development and awareness somehow, these emails are still very effective. In an attempt to explain why these emails are still effective, Google security researcher Elie Bursztein explained the phishing email strategy through stats during the Black Hat 2019 security conference.
According to an estimate, Gmail ends up blocking 100 million phishing email daily an out of all these emails Google claims that 68% are completely unique and new variation. To make things even worse, shocking report reveals that the campaign based targeted emails are subjected towards just a few dozen individuals and most of these receivers belong to a specific community. Enterprise users are five times more likely to become the target of these emails whereas, education users become twice as likely, government users thrice as likely and non-profit organization are at the risk to become 3.8 times more likely a target.
Most of the phishing campaigns last few hours to a few minutes, according to report bulk phishing campaign lasts 13 hours and it as the attacks become more focus they become more short-lived. One of the most famous phishing campaigns is known as a boutique campaign that targets only a few people in origination and this campaign lasts only seven minutes. The only reason most of the receivers can’t detect that the email is spam because these emails are designed to be sent by email providers, cloud services provider, e-commerce sites and financial services. Most of the hackers are successful; because people are hardly aware of phishing emails, according to Google reported that 45% of internet users are not aware of the risk of phishing emails and how they actually work. Most of these gangs use psychological tricks while designing these phishing email campaigns. Most of them use fear or urgency as their weapons which makes it easier for the receiver to open the email. It is now very important for the authorities to raise awareness so that these phishing campaigns can be reduced and this effectiveness can be controlled.
Photo: Shutterstock
Read next: Thanks to the Sextortion Email Campaign, Cybercriminals have Collected over $69 Billion by Blackmailing their Targets!
According to an estimate, Gmail ends up blocking 100 million phishing email daily an out of all these emails Google claims that 68% are completely unique and new variation. To make things even worse, shocking report reveals that the campaign based targeted emails are subjected towards just a few dozen individuals and most of these receivers belong to a specific community. Enterprise users are five times more likely to become the target of these emails whereas, education users become twice as likely, government users thrice as likely and non-profit organization are at the risk to become 3.8 times more likely a target.
Most of the phishing campaigns last few hours to a few minutes, according to report bulk phishing campaign lasts 13 hours and it as the attacks become more focus they become more short-lived. One of the most famous phishing campaigns is known as a boutique campaign that targets only a few people in origination and this campaign lasts only seven minutes. The only reason most of the receivers can’t detect that the email is spam because these emails are designed to be sent by email providers, cloud services provider, e-commerce sites and financial services. Most of the hackers are successful; because people are hardly aware of phishing emails, according to Google reported that 45% of internet users are not aware of the risk of phishing emails and how they actually work. Most of these gangs use psychological tricks while designing these phishing email campaigns. Most of them use fear or urgency as their weapons which makes it easier for the receiver to open the email. It is now very important for the authorities to raise awareness so that these phishing campaigns can be reduced and this effectiveness can be controlled.
Photo: Shutterstock
Read next: Thanks to the Sextortion Email Campaign, Cybercriminals have Collected over $69 Billion by Blackmailing their Targets!
