O Europe was the country that suffered most from phishing attacks for the Whatsapp in the year 2022. The information comes from a survey made by Kaspersky through its Spam and phishing report. According to the survey, the distribution of malicious messages through messengers has increased in the last year.
Among the apps in the category, most of the submissions were concentrated on the Meta app, with 82.71%. Then comes the telegramwith 14.12% and the viber with 3.17%. Europe, in turn, is the country that leads in terms of phishing attacks through WhatsApp. There were more than 76 thousand blocks.
As for Telegram, the country was second only to Russia. Among the victims, those who use order entry services are the ones who suffered the most from phishing scams, which accounted for 27.38% of the registered blockages. In this regard, scammers send emails pretending to be delivery companies and report problems, sending a fake link to collect financial and personal data.
Fabio Assolini is director of Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team for Latin America and commented on the study:
Phishing is the most common scam in Europe because it is very easy to create at a low cost. This threat becomes even more effective due to the creativity of Europeian cybercrime, which manages to create convincing ‘excuses’ for its tricks. But it is important to highlight that the fake message, or phishing, is just an initial step of the scam. Being able to identify and block it means preventing the attack from completing. For ordinary people, this means avoiding theft of your money or fraud using your name (digital identity theft). Companies are more at risk, as phishing can steal employee credentials — which will allow the criminal to access their network to steal confidential data or install ransomware.
To avoid falling for scams, Kaspersky experts recommend opening links only if you are sure you can trust the sender, checking with them through another channel if you find the link suspicious, verifying the address by typing in manually, and using a proven security solution when browsing the internet.
Check out our articles on other WhatsApp scams, such as the one where criminals use the name of the Central Bank and one that promised users a minibar with Heineken beers.
