Over 400,000 phishing sites were observed each month during 2016. Of those observed sites, 84% existed for less than 24 hours, with an average life cycle of under 15 hours. Some sites can last for as little as 15 minutes. The data was collected by Webroot and reported on by HelpNet Security.
Nearly all of today’s phishing URLs are hidden within benign domains, pages inserted into compromised websites, and mimic the look and feel of large, well respected online properties. Google, PayPal, Yahoo and Apple are heavily targeted for phishing attacks with Google being the most heavily targeted. Between January and September 2016 21% of all phishing sites impersonated the Google. Impressive impersonation stats for 2016 were:
- 21% – Google
- 19% – Yahoo
- 15% – Apple
- 13% – PayPal
- 13% – Wells Fargo
- 20% – Other