Messaging apps, especially WhatsApp, are the most used by cybercriminals to spread malicious links.
Scammers who exploit phishing techniques turned, in greater numbers, between December 2020 and May 2021, to WhatsApp in 89.6% of cases and then to Telegram (5.6%) and Viber (4.7%) .
Globally, 480 cases of phishing have been recorded per day.
According to research conducted by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky.
Phishing is a type of scam through which an attacker tries to deceive the victim by convincing them to provide personal information, financial data or access codes, by releasing them on a site sent with the message.
Often these fake portals faithfully reproduce those of real subjects, including post offices, banks or entities and organizations.
The report is the result of anonymised data voluntarily provided by users of Kaspersky Internet Security for Android.
As Kaspersky explains, messaging apps surpassed social networks by 20% in terms of popularity among users in 2020, becoming the most used communication tool.
"In the fight against phishing in messaging apps, you have to be very careful, relying on the latest anti-phishing technologies," commented Tatyana Shcherbakova, Senior Web Content Analyst at Kaspersky.
The survey results also show that in 2020 the total number of users of these apps, globally, amounted to 2.7 billion, a figure that is expected to grow to 3.1 billion by 2023.
This sum represents almost 40% of the world population.
In terms of the number of phishing attacks recorded per single user on WhatsApp, the record is held by Brazil with 177 attacks and India with 158. (ANSA).
