Il Phishing is becoming a widespread phenomenon: hackers are becoming more experienced day by day, employing sophisticated methods and complexes to unmask, thus making themselves the architects of very serious losses of data, money and more.
This is confirmed by the results that emerged from the Clusit Report 2024, especially with regard to Italy, which seems to be increasingly in the crosshairs of cyber attacks: in 2023, our country suffered 11% of the global serious attacks mapped by Clusit, marking a growth of 65% over the previous year.Â
The Report provides a detailed overview of the most significant security incidents that occurred globally in 2023, comparing them with those of the previous 4 years.
Particularly highlighted is the unstoppable growth of attacks: with 2,779 serious accidents analyzed, the highest number ever, a sharp deterioration is shown (an increase of 12% compared to 2022).
The 81% of the attacks had a high or critical severity, according to the "severity" scale used by Clusit researchers, based on attack type and impacts. An average of 232 attacks occurred each month in the past year, with a peak of 270 in April, the highest value recorded so far.
Over the years, the channels through which hackers can attack have increased significantly, and knowing the risks and adopting the right methods to detect cyber threats is indispensable.
As evidence of what has been examined, the following is testimony of a serious loss of money.
Marco Filosa, a city employee, was a victim of bank phishing, having his bank account emptied within minutes.
The scam began with a message apparently from his bank inviting him to click on a link to resolve a security issue. He had called the toll-free number without receiving an answer, and shortly thereafter he was contacted again by a number identical to that of the bank.
Fraudsters, using sophisticated techniques such as the phone number cloning Of the bank, induced Marco to enter his PIN code into the banking app, making him believe that he was blocking fraudulent wire transfers. In reality, he was authorizing transfers arranged by the fraudsters, totaling nearly 16,000 euros.
Despite Marco's attempts to block the transactions and the bank's late intervention, the instant transfers made it impossible to recover the money.
How to defend against Phishing?
Phishing represents one of the most insidious threats on the web, aimed at stealing sensitive information through deception.To protect yourself from this and other possible attacks, it is essential to Take effective preventive measures.
First, it is advisable to carefully check the authenticity of every email, message, or website before providing personal or financial data... but that's not all: there are a variety of aspects to which care must be taken when it comes to cybersecurity, especially if they are organizations that store sensitive data of many people. Each company, according to its own characteristics, Has different needs for each specific area and needs a ad hoc solution to counter this unstoppable phenomenon.
Raising staff awareness, adopting multi-factor authentication, and keeping software up-to-date are just some of the key strategies to prevent cyber threats.
At a time when the cybersecurity is an unavoidable priority, it is critical to take proactive measures to protect yourself.
How can HRC help you?
Only through proper awareness and adopting good tools can this insidious problem be addressed and we at HRC are here to help you with that. We offer various products and services essential to thwarting cyber criminals.
First among them our package Awareness, within which you will find a comprehensive video course to gain proper awareness about these issues.
Equally important MDR, The proactive and intelligent antivirus system which monitors network traffic and analyzes operating system behavior to detect suspicious activity and nip potential threats in the bud, thus preventing irreparable damage.
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