Corporate end-users should be on high alert for phishing attacks in the final quarter of the year as this is when most malicious emails are likely to land, according to new research from Tessian.
The email security vendor analyzed four billion messages sent between July 2020 and July 2021 to compile its Spear Phishing Threat Landscape 2021 report.
It found 45% more malicious emails sent in October, November and December 2020 than in the previous quarter. That’s perhaps not surprising given the number of opportunities for threat actors at the end of the year to capitalize on current events.
November 2020 saw the most significant spike, with around 90,000 malicious emails detected in the week of the Black Friday sales.