Security News > 2021 > August > Phishing continues to target big businesses and exploit COVID-19 fears in Q2 2021
Despite a rise in global spam numbers, adoption of new languages by phishing attackers, new scam types and a shift in the most commonly impersonated business type to phish people, Kaspersky's Q2 2021 quarterly spam report is described by its authors as "Not delivering any surprises."
That's not to say there wasn't anything actually interesting in Q2 phishing and spam statistics: The percentage of email that's junk is up to 46.56% after bottoming out in March 2021, and global internet portals have displaced online stores as the business type most commonly impersonated by cybercriminals in phishing campaigns.
In addition to exploiting pandemic-related mail slowdowns, attackers have also been scamming the public with fake COVID-19 grant emails.
Also common in Q2 2021 were fake attachments that send business users to fake Office365 or other business software login portals, fake online movie streaming scams and investment and property-related scams, which Kaspersky described as "a curious takeaway" as those attacks spiked in Q2. Attackers are also getting smart in how they target certain scams.
Chat or message scams that invite users to chat with "Beautiful strangers" redirect users to a Facebook login phishing page.
As for what to expect in Q3 2021, Kaspersky said that businesses will continue to be the most popular targets, and that COVID-19 scams will continue to hang around in one form or another.