Phishing emails delivering infostealers surge 84% - Help Net Security

Cybercriminals continued to shift to stealthier tactics, with lower-profile credential theft spiking, while ransomware attacks on enterprises declined, according to IBM.

Researchers observed an 84% increase in emails delivering infostealers in 2024 compared to the prior year, a method threat actors relied heavily on to scale identity attacks.

70% of attacks in 2024 involved critical infrastructure. In this subset, the use of valid accounts made up 31% of initial access vectors, followed by phishing and exploiting public facing applications, both at 26%. Malware was deployed in 40% of cases and ransomware was the malware of choice, occurring in 30% of malware deployments.

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