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Report: U.S. is top target of phishing attacks worldwide

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The U.S. is targeted by phishing attacks more than any other country in the world, according to a new report by Outseer that examined 56,000 cyberattacks during the third quarter of last year.

The report found that phishing attacks targeting the U.S. rose significantly during the third quarter of 2021, up 43% from Q2.

Fourteen percent of the 56,000 attacks Outseer detected in its network during the third quarter were phishing attacks, meaning it detected 7,840 phishing attacks during that time.

Top Phishing Target Countries: U.S. is at 21%, Spain is at 14%, South Africa is at 12%, The Philippines is at 9%, Greece is at 7%, Canada and The Netherlands are both at 6%, China is at 4%, India and Japan are at 3%, and all others combined are at 15%.

Outseer defines a phishing attack as a cyberattack that’s used to steal personal information from unwitting end-users under false pretenses, either by email, phone or text message.

Venturebeat has previously reported on how enterprise technical decision makers are battling an epidemic of such attacks, due in part to the shift to remote work and an industry shortage of IT talent.

The Jan. 19 report from Outseer also found that the U.S. was the top hosting country for phishing attacks, accounting for 73% of internet service providers hosting these types of attacks.

“This is largely attributable to a handful of large-scale hosting authorities, whose sheer scale can make it easier for fraudulent activity to go undetected,” the report said.

The report found that, even as phishing proliferates, brand abuse attacks — where fraudsters pretend to be a legitimate company (or its executives) in order to get someone to click a link or give up sensitive information — are proliferating even faster.

Outseer detected a 274% increase in brand abuse attacks in the third quarter of 2021, compared to the same time period in 2020.

“Whether it’s phishing or brand abuse, training employees to resist these kinds of attacks is a good start, but is not enough,” said Armen Najarian, chief identity officer at Outseer. “Humans are inherently fallible, and even the savviest employee can fall victim to a well-engineered scam. For that reason, enterprises need a tech solution to catch the mistakes people make.”

Read the full report from Outseer.

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