DHL ranks first among the brands most commonly used for phishing emails and scams according to CheckPoint’s Q4 Brand Phishing Report for 2021.
DHL was imitated in 23% of all phishing attacks detected worldwide. Microsoft came second with 20%, WhatsApp with 11% and Google with 10%. Other brands that topped the list include LinkedIn 8%, Amazon 4%, FedEx 3%, Roblox 3%, PayPal 2% and Apple 2%.
Omer Dembinsky, data research group manager at Check Point Software, “This quarter, for the first time, we’ve seen global logistics company DHL top the rankings as the most likely brand to be imitated, presumably to capitalize on the soaring number of new and potentially vulnerable online shoppers during the year’s busiest retail period.”
The CheckPoint report also showed that social media platforms were increasingly being used for spoofing.
LinkedIn, for example, advanced from eighth to fifth, while WhatsApp advanced from sixth to third.
“Unfortunately, there’s only so much brands like DHL, Microsoft, and WhatsApp — which represent the top 3 most imitated brands in Q4 — can do to combat phishing attempts. It’s all too easy for the human element to overlook things like misspelled domains, typos, incorrect dates, or other suspicious details, and that’s what opens the door to further damage. We’d urge all users to be very mindful of these details when dealing with the likes of DHL in the coming months,” Dembinsky advised.
For more information, read the original story in ZDNet.