5 Staggering Facts You Should Know
I recently came across an article on the Canadian Government website called “Phishing: How many take the bait?” Here’s some startling facts about this very lucrative crime:
1. 156 million Phishing emails are sent daily by cyber-criminals
2. About 16 million make it through ordinary SPAM filters
3. Of the 16 million that make it through, 8 million are opened
4. Within the 8 million emails opened, 800,000 links are clicked
5. 80,000 people fall for a Phishing scam every day
Think about those numbers for a moment. Even if we only count Monday through Friday (after all even criminals need their rest!) that means over 780 million phishing emails are sent each week—that’s 3.1 billion per month and 37.4 billion per year! The result—stolen identities and financial loss.
Criminals employ massive bot armies (computers they’ve taken over from unsuspecting people) and blast millions of infected SPAM emails each day, making millions of dollars in the process. Because it’s so lucrative, Phishing via SPAM attacks will only increase.
A big target of these scams are Small-to-Medium Size Businesses (SMBs) because infecting one PC within a company often leads to deep penetration of the network itself where credit card data, personal information, social security numbers, bank account numbers, medical records, etc. are located.
Many small businesses don’t pay enough attention to cyber security—and the criminals know that. Criminals have now set their sights on small businesses because they’re easier to hack than their larger counterparts with much bigger security budgets. Makes perfect sense, if you’re a criminal.
The best way to stop infected SPAM emails from reaching you or your employees is to employ an Advanced SPAM Filter. Click here to find out more about how XSolutions can help stop 99.9% of SPAM from ever reaching your inbox.
XSolutions has gone to great lengths to educate the public, SMBs in particular, on how to harden systems, protect yourselves from cyber-attacks, and how to remain safe when accessing the internet. For a rich treasure chest of articles, read our blog on a regular basis.
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