Cloudflare Reveals the 50 Most Impersonated Brands for Phishing Attempts
Cloudflare, a leader in internet security, performance, and reliability solutions, has published a list of the 50 most impersonated brands used for phishing attempts. The report also analyzes the industries most affected by identity theft.
The 50 Most Impersonated Brands in Phishing Attacks
Phishing is becoming increasingly common, targeting both individuals and businesses. It is currently the fastest-growing form of cybercrime. Cybercriminals attempt to steal sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, by posing as well-known companies. These attempts can be made through email, SMS, or website URLs with spelling similar to the official site.
Phishing attacks exploit our trust in the brands we appreciate and use daily, making them increasingly difficult to detect, even for the most experienced digital users, according to Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.
Here is the complete ranking of the 50 most impersonated brands (based on data from 2022):
- AT&T Inc.
- PayPal
- Microsoft
- DHL
- Facebook (Meta)
- Internal Revenue Service
- Verizon
- Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS Co., Ltd.
- Adobe
- Amazon
- Apple
- Wells Fargo & Company
- eBay, Inc.
- Swiss Post
- Naver
- Instagram (Meta)
- WhatsApp (Meta)
- Rakuten
- East Japan Railway Company
- American Express Company
- KDDI
- Office365 (Microsoft)
- Chase Bank
- AEON
- Singtel Optus Pty Limited
- Coinbase Global, Inc.
- Banco Bradesco S.A.
- Caixa Econômica Federal
- JCB Co., Ltd.
- ING Group
- HSBC Holdings plc
- Netflix Inc
- Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
- Nubank
- Bank Millennium SA
- National Police Agency Japan
- Allegro
- InPost
- Correos
- FedEx
- Linkedin (Microsoft)
- United States Postal Service
- Alphabet
- The Bank of America Corporation
- Deutscher Paketdienst
- Banco Itaú Unibanco S.A.
- Steam
- Swisscom AG
- LexisNexis
- Orange S.A.
Methodology: Cloudflare used 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver data to identify the domains associated with phishing URLs that users clicked on most frequently.
Industries Most Impacted by Identity Theft
Finance, technology, and telecommunications are the sectors with the most impersonated brands.
In finance, malicious actors can access “financial benefits that companies operating in the banking, email, social media, and telephone sectors can provide.”
In technology and telecommunications, cybercriminals through phishing attacks can “intercept emails and SMS messages used for verifying a user’s identity via two-factor authentication. As a result, these phishing attempts can also lead to the compromise of other accounts.”
Source: Cloudflare