2022 ThreatLabz Phishing Report

Phishing has long been one of the most pervasive cyberthreats, and it grows every year. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), phishing reported the most victims nationally in 2020, and according to the 2021 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 35% of all data breaches involved scams trying to steal people’s sensitive information or login credentials. Phishing did not slow down in 2021: the Zscaler ThreatLabz research team saw a 29% increase in phishing attempts globally.

Some key findings are:

• Phishing attacks rose 29% in 2021 compared to 2020
• Microsoft, Telegram, Amazon, OneDrive, and Paypal topped the growing list of targeted brands
• The United States, Singapore, Germany, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom were the top five most targeted countries
• Retail and wholesale were the most targeted industries, experiencing the highest increase in
• phishing attacks at +436%