AT&T, Microsoft And Facebook Among Most Impersonated Brands In 2022: Report

A latest report has revealed that AT&T, PayPal, Microsoft and Facebook were among the most impersonated brands in 2022.

The report found that finance, technology, and telecom brands were the most commonly impersonated industries, due to unprecedented access and financial benefit that bank accounts, email and social media, and phone companies can give attackers.

Technology and telecom companies are a unique threat because phishing attacks can intercept the emails and text messages that are used to verify a user’s identity via two-factor authentication. Therefore, these phishing attempts can lead to other accounts being compromised as well, noted the Cloudflare report.

“Phishing attacks prey on our trust in the brands we love and use everyday, and are becoming more difficult to spot for even the most digitally-savvy person. Our sanity, bank accounts, and passwords shouldn't be compromised because we glossed over a misspelled 'from' field or accidentally clicked on an obscure URL,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO, Cloudflare.

“Phishing” refers to an attempt to steal sensitive information like usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, bank and crypto account information, or other important data in order to utilize or sell the stolen information.