New figures from Google help to explain why phishing attacks, which have been around for decades, are still a massive threat. Every day Google blocks over 100 millions phishing emails, about two-thirds (68%) of which are new campaigns. Phishing campaigns target users in certain sectors far more often than regular Gmail users. For every phishing message the average consumer receives, enterprise users will receive 5, non-profits 3.8, government users 3 and education users 2.
Generic phishing attacks last 13 hours on average, while ’boutique campaigns’ targeting only a handful of users at a specific organization last a mere 7 minutes. One in every two phishing messages claims to come from the target’s email provider and one in four seems to have been sent by a cloud services provider. Even though phishing is a decades-old, widespread phenomenon, Google stats how that 45% of users still don’t know what it is and how it puts them at risk.
Read more: Phishing emails: Here’s why we are still getting caught out after all these years
