Holiday-Themed Phishing Attacks Rose 692% Ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Summary
Darktrace reported a 692% rise in Black Friday and Cyber Monday-themed phishing emails compared with early November, alongside increased brand impersonation and warnings about seasonal attacks.
Key points
- Darktrace reported that Christmas-themed phishing rose 327% and Black Friday and Cyber Monday-themed phishing rose 692% between the analyzed periods.
- In the US retail sector, attacks impersonating major brands increased by more than 2,000%; Walmart was the most mimicked US brand.
- Impersonation of consumer brands including Amazon and PayPal rose 92% globally, while spoofing of workplace-focused brands fell 9%.
- Observed tactics included lookalike retail domains, brand-impersonating emails, malicious links, and multi-stage attacks that direct victims to sites harvesting login or payment details.
- Darktrace reported seeing more than 300,000 suspicious uses of rewritten Safelinks over three months.
- The article also warns that reduced holiday staffing can slow detection and response; it cites ransomware encryption beginning off-hours or on weekends in 76% of cases.
- Recommendations include layered email defenses, automated alert triage, and maintaining coverage during off-peak hours.
Article Details
- Event Type
- Darktrace reported a surge in holiday-themed phishing and brand-impersonation activity, alongside increased cybercriminal activity during off-peak periods.
- Impact
- Phishing and spoofing campaigns impersonating retail and consumer brands may expose consumers to malware and theft of personal, payment, or login details. Reduced staffing during holidays may also slow organizational detection and response; Darktrace described a ransomware incident on a client network launched on Christmas Day.
Vendors
Products
Autonomous ResponseStep 3: Make sure someone – or something – is keeping guard in those super off-peak hours. Enter Autonomous Response. Because it knows what normal looks like for your business it can take action to stop and contain onlyDarktrace / EMAILDarktrace / EMAIL – the fastest growing email security solution – has been proven to detect up to 56% more threats than other email solutions.9 It is uniquely capable of catching novel attacks on the first encounter,Darktrace Cyber AI Analystfall into, but consider technology that can automate that initial triage. For example, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst automatically investigates every alert detected by Darktrace’s core real-time detection engine. It