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New Delhi: Professional networking platform LinkedIn continued to be the most imitated brand by cyber criminals to trick people into giving up their personal data in the second quarter (Q2) this year, a report showed on Tuesday. While LinkedIn was at the top with 45 per cent of all phishing attempts in Q2, its parent company Microsoft moved to the second spot with 13 per cent of all phishing attempts, edging DHL into third place with 12 per cent share, according to Check Point Research.
Some new brands entering the top 10 were Adidas, Adobe, and HSBC. Other brands in the top 10 list by Check Point were Amazon (9 per cent), Apple (3 per cent), Google (1 per cent) Netflix (1 per cent), and Adobe (1 per cent).
“Phishing emails are a prominent tool in every hacker’s arsenal as they are fast to deploy and can target millions of users at relatively low cost,” said Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Group Manager at Check Point Software. “They give cybercriminals the opportunity to leverage the reputation of trusted brands to give users a false sense of security that can be exploited to steal personal or commercial information for financial gain,” Dembinsky added.
Social networks generally continue to be the most imitated category, followed by technology which, this quarter, took over second place from shipping. The researchers said that the increase in the use of Microsoft-related scams is a danger to both individuals and organisations. “Once someone has hold of your account login details, they have access to all the applications behind it, such as Teams and SharePoint, as well as the obvious risk of compromise to your Outlook email account,” the report mentioned.
