Phishing Works, New Infographic Heightens Awareness

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The lures can come in the form of an email, text message, or even a phone call. If successful, this technique could enable threat actors to gain initial access to a network and affect the targeted organization and related third parties. The result can be a data breach, data or service loss, identity fraud, malware infection, or ransomware.

In terms of phishing attacks:

• 70 percent of all attached files or links containing malware were not blocked by network border protection services.
• 15 percent of all malicious attachments or links were not blocked by endpoint protections, which are set up to reduce the amount of unwanted or malicious activity.
• Within the first 10 minutes of receiving a malicious email, 84 percent of employees took the bait by either replying with sensitive information or interacting with a spoofed link or attachment.
• 13 percent of targeted employees reported the phishing attempts. Employee failure to report phishing attempts limits the organization’s ability to respond to the intrusion and alert others to the threat.

The infographic provides a visual summary of how threat actors execute successful phishing operations. Details include metrics that compare the likelihood of certain types of “bait” and how commonly each bait type succeeds in tricking the targeted individual.

The infographic also provides detailed actions organizations and individuals can take to prevent successful phishing operations – from blocking phishing attempts to teaching individuals how to report successful phishing operations.

Click here to view the infographic.