Security News > 2022 > January > DHL takes top spot as most imitated brand in phishing attacks
For the final quarter of 2021, DHL surpassed Microsoft as the brand most spoofed in phishing campaigns, says Check Point Research.
For the final quarter of 2021, DHL took over the top spot from Microsoft as the most impersonated brand by cybercriminals using phishing tactics.
For the quarter, DHL was spoofed in 23% of all brand phishing attempts, up from just 9% in the year's previous quarter.
While Microsoft is always a popular target in phishing attacks, DHL grabbed the top spot last quarter due to seasonal reasons.
Among the specific phishing emails examined by Check Point, one used DHL Customer Support as the sender's name and contained the subject line of "DHL Shipment Notification: xxxxxxxxxx Out for delivery for 15 Dec 21." Claiming that the victim was due to receive a package, the attacker was trying to lure the recipient to click on a malicious link for a phony DHL webpage to steal their email address and password.
"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," Dembinsky said.
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