Social Engineering Spam and phishing in 2021

[Andy Ful]

AUTHORS

• Tatyana Kulikova​

• Tatyana Shcherbakova​

Figures of the year​

In 2021:

• 56% of e-mails were spam
• 77% of spam was sent from Russia with another 14.12% from Germany
• Our Mail Anti-Virus blocked 148 173 261 malicious attachments sent in e-mails
• The most common malware family found in attachments were Agensla Trojans
• Our Anti-Phishing system blocked 253 365 212 phishing links
• Safe Messaging blocked 341 954 attempts to follow phishing links in messengers

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Trends of the year​

How to make an unprofitable investment with no return​

The subject of investments gained significant relevance in 2021, with banks and other organizations actively promoting investment and brokerage accounts. Cybercriminals wanted in on this trend and tried to make their “investment projects” look as alluring as possible. Scammers used the names of successful individuals and well-known companies to attract attention and gain the trust of investors. That’s how cybercriminals posing as Elon Musk or the Russian oil and gas company Gazprom Neft tricked Russian-speaking victims into parting with small sums of money in the hope of landing a pot of gold later. In some cases, they’d invite the “customer” to have a consultation with a specialist in order to come across as legit. The outcome would still be the same: the investor would receive nothing in return for giving their money to the scammers.

Full report:

Kaspersky spam and phishing report for 2021

Statistics on spam and phishing with the key trends in 2021: investment scams, fake streaming websites, theft of corporate credentials and COVID-19.

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