Cyberattacks involving the psychological manipulation of targeted users, which is known as social engineering, have surged in 2018, a new Trend Micro report has found. According to the report, the number of detected phishing URLs increased by 269% compared to the year before. The finding is in line with a new report from Webroot.
Business email compromise (BEC) scams, which are a sophisticated social engineering attack, grew by 28%. The researchers found that in general, cyberattacks are getting more sophisticated and targeted. According to Jon Clay of Trend Micro “[t]he changes across the threat landscape in 2018 reflect a change in cybercriminal’s mindset,” as “[t]oday’s most prevalent attacks are targeted and well planned, as opposed to one-size-fits-all attacks of the past.”
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