Click-throughs on Phishing Links Triple
While in 2023, 3 out of every 1,000 workers fell victim to phishing, in 2024 the proportion was 9 out of every 1,000.
Phishing attacks are becoming increasingly successful. This is according to Netskope’s annual Cloud & Threat Report.
Over the course of 2024, business users ended up clicking on fake links almost three times as often as a year earlier.
While in 2023 fewer than 3 in 1000 workers fell victim to phishing attempts, over the following twelve months the proportion rose to 8 in 1000. Phishing success increased by 190 %.
The research notes an increase in security issues related to the use of cloud applications and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace.
Netskope highlights the hosting of malicious payloads on platforms trusted by victims, such as GitHub, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive.
Up to 88% of organisations have had malicious content downloaded via popular cloud apps at least once a month.
Cloud apps accounted for more than a quarter (27%) of phishing clicks in 2024. Microsoft solutions were particularly targeted, with actions targeting Microsoft Live and Microsoft 365 credentials.
It is worth noting that 88% of employees use personal cloud apps on a monthly basis and 26% upload, publish or send data through them.
Users can end up working with sensitive information in personal storage, mail, calendar or social networking tools, for example, resulting in a loss of control by the organisation.
The leakage of sensitive data through such applications is a major concern for businesses.
The most common breach of data policy concerns data of a regulated nature (60%), including personal, financial and health data. The rest relate to intellectual property (16%), source code (13%), passwords (11%) and encrypted information (1%).
In artificial intelligence, generative AI applications are present in 94% of companies compared to 81% in 2023, with an average of 9.6 apps per company. ChatGPT is the most popular, with a share of 84%.
Use of these tools has tripled among employees, from 2.6% to 7.8% today, particularly in retail and technology firms.
Other data from the Netskope study shows that 73% of organisations block at least one generative AI application, at a rate of 2.4 applications on average per year.
A minority of companies use DLP to control the flow of data in generative AI solutions (45%) and real-time interactive coaching to empower users to make informed decisions (34%).
