LinkedIn, for the first time ever, is the social network most supplanted by cybercriminals

According to the Brand Phishing Report for the first quarter of 2022 by the cybersecurity company, Check Point Research (CPR), LinkedIn is for the first time ever supplanted by cybercriminals, followed by DHL and Google.

Having registered 8% of social engineering attacks, it became the protagonist with 52% of phishing attempts, a type of attack in which cybercriminals impersonate the website to steal personal information or payment credentials .

In just three months, it registered a 44% increase over the previous period, when LinkedIn ranked fifth in phishing attempts. According to specialists, it has even surpassed DHL as the most affected, which now ranks second and accounts for 14% of all phishing attempts in the first months of the year.

The report notes that cyber hackers contact LinkedIn users through an email that looks identical to those of the company to entice them to click on a malicious link. Once the victim enters the site, which also appears to be the official one, he asks to log in, but he keeps the password and username.

When they get passwords, cybercriminals can take control of the account to send spam, fraud, or perform any other social engineering tactic.

Records indicate that social media is the main target of cybercriminals, even ahead of transport companies and tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Apple.

Among them, as stated earlier, LinkedIn proved to be the most affected of all. WhatsApp is also in the top ten, accounting for nearly 1 in 20 phishing-related attacks worldwide. Facebook, for its part, this year came out of the list of the most attacked social networks.

Followed by social platforms is the transport sector as the category most attacked by cyber pirates. In this case, they have taken advantage of the increase in e-commerce to directly target consumers and courier companies.

DHL is in second place with 14% of phishing attempts; FedEx has moved from seventh to fifth, and now accounts for 6% of all cases; and Maersk and AliExpress are in the top ten list. Overall, the positions held by the ten most affected companies are as follows:

1. LinkedIn (related to 52% of all phishing attacks globally)

2ND DHL (14%)

4. Microsoft (6%)

5. FedEx (6%)

6. WhatsApp (4%)

7. Amazon (2%)

8. Maersk (1%)

9. AliExpress (0.8%)

10. Apple (0.8%)

The report highlights the phishing strategy that used Maersk-branded emails to encourage the download of alleged transit documents, infecting victims' computers with malware. In addition to infection, cybercriminals also have other actions such as credential theft.

“The best defense against these threats, as always, is knowledge. Employees, in particular, should be trained to detect suspicious anomalies, such as misspelled domains, typographical errors, incorrect dates, and other details that may expose a fake email or text message. LinkedIn users, in particular, should be very vigilant over the next few months,” said Ivonne Pedraza, CPS Territory Manager.

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