Globally, India stands third in the frequency of phishing incidents, coming in after the US and UK. Notably, the Indian tech sector is the primary victim, with a third of these deceptive attacks directed at it.

Zscaler’s cybersecurity analysis reveals a 60% increase in phishing activities worldwide over the last year. This finding is based on the ThreatLabz 2024 Phishing Report, which examined 2 billion intercepted phishing attempts from January to December 2023.

The report points out that in 2023, India was the third most affected country by phishing scams, with the tech industry being the most frequently targeted.

Furthermore, the finance and insurance sectors have become the main focus of cybercriminals, recording the most phishing incidents in 2023. The report elaborates that the finance and insurance sectors not only faced the highest volume of phishing attacks but also saw a 393% jump in such incidents compared to the previous year.

The growing dependence on digital financial services has opened up new avenues for cybercriminals to launch phishing operations and exploit weaknesses in this area.

Following this, the manufacturing sector experienced a 31% increase in phishing attacks from 2022 to 2023. The integration of AI technology in these industries has made them more appealing targets for phishing due to their increased data dependency.

Top Targets Revealed

The expansion of India’s digital infrastructure, the rising number of internet users, and the widespread use of online financial transactions have significantly contributed to the rise and complexity of phishing attacks in the country.

To combat these threats, the Indian government has taken measures like introducing the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, aiming to prevent the spread of such malicious activities, as stated by Sudip Banerjee, CTO for Asia Pacific & Japan at Zscaler.

In 2023, Microsoft was the most frequently mimicked corporate brand, followed by Adobe, Amazon, and Google. On social media, Telegram recorded the highest number of phishing incidents, followed by Facebook and WhatsApp.

While AI technologies expose organizations to cyber threats, they also simplify the process for cybercriminals. According to the report, language learning models (LLMs) have significantly eased the process for cybercriminals to execute complex phishing attacks, even for those with minimal coding skills.

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