Em muitos países, a primavera é a época tradicional para a apresentação de declarações de imposto de renda. Esses documentos são uma mina de ouro para as pessoas mal-intencionadas porque contêm uma grande quantidade de dados pessoais, como histórico profissional, renda, ativos, detalhes da conta bancária e por aí vai. Não é surpresa que os golpistas aumentem seus esforços nessa época; a internet está cheia de sites falsos projetados para parecerem exatamente recursos governamentais e autoridades fiscais.

Com a proximidade de prazos e números a serem analisados, a pressa de terminar tudo a tempo pode fazer com que as pessoas baixem a guarda. Na confusão, é fácil não perceber os sinais de que o site onde você está detalhando suas finanças não tem nenhuma conexão com o fisco, ou que o arquivo que acabou de ser baixado, supostamente de um fiscal, na verdade é malware.

Nesta postagem, detalharemos como esses sites fraudulentos de agências fiscais operam em diferentes países e o que é preciso evitar fazer para manter seu dinheiro e suas informações confidenciais seguros.

Brasileiros na mira

A temporada de declaração do Imposto de Renda no Brasil trouxe um aumento notável na atividade de cibercriminosos. Apenas em março, a Kaspersky identificou ao menos 61 domínios maliciosos registrados no país, todos utilizando o Leão como isca para enganar contribuintes e roubar informações sensíveis ou pagamentos indevidos.

Os ataques vão desde páginas falsas que simulam serviços oficiais até campanhas de phishing que se passam por comunicações legítimas de órgãos governamentais. O principal objetivo é induzir as vítimas a fornecer suas credenciais do Gov.br, plataforma oficial de serviços públicos digitais do Governo Federal, ou a realizar transferências financeiras sob pressão.

A principal estratégia da campanha é a abordagem clássica de criar sites fraudulentos que imitam páginas oficiais, utilizando termos como “IRPF”, “regularização”, “declaração” e até referências diretas à Receita Federal, como logotipos, para parecerem legítimos. Essas páginas são projetadas para confundir os usuários e aumentar as chances de acesso não autorizado a dados pessoais.

A campanha também incluiu o envio de e-mails falsos a contribuintes, informando sobre supostos problemas em suas declarações. Nessas mensagens, as vítimas são alertadas sobre irregularidades no CPF e incentivadas a resolver a situação com urgência, muitas vezes com promessas de benefícios, como descontos em multas.

Ao seguir as instruções, as vítimas são direcionadas a realizar pagamentos via PIX ou boleto, sistema de cobrança brasileiro com código de barras. Os prazos são sempre curtos, aumentando a pressão e reduzindo o tempo disponível para verificação. Os valores são enviados para contas de terceiros, o que dificulta a recuperação do dinheiro.

Além de sites de phishing que imitam recursos legítimos, nossos especialistas descobriram sites fraudulentos que prometem serviços pagos para preencher e auditar documentos fiscais, mas que, na prática, roubam dados de alto valor, como números do CPF.

Phishing contra contribuintes

Além do Brasil, os invasores estão falsificando sites de autoridades fiscais em vários outros países, inclusive os portais oficiais dos governos da Alemanha, França, Áustria, Suíça, Chile e Colômbia. O modus operandi é similar: nos sites fraudulentos, os golpistas coletam credenciais de serviços legítimos e roubam dados pessoais antes de se oferecerem para processar uma dedução fiscal, desde que a vítima forneça os dados do cartão de crédito. Em alguns casos, eles até cobram uma taxa por esse serviço fraudulento.

Às vezes, a tática envolve acusações feitas em nome de órgãos governamentais. Na imagem abaixo, por exemplo, um suposto chefe de auditoria fiscal, em Paris, informa à vítima que ela forneceu informações de renda incompletas. Então, para evitar penalidades, a pessoa é instruída a baixar um documento e fazer as correções imediatamente. No entanto, o arquivo PDF esconde algo muito pior: malware.

Na Colômbia, um site falso da direção nacional de impostos e alfândegas também solicita que as pessoas baixem documentos que devem ser “desbloqueados com uma chave de segurança”. Na realidade, trata-se simplesmente de um arquivo comprimido ZIP malicioso e protegido por senha.

Lucros de criptomoedas isentos de impostos

Os detentores de criptomoedas passaram a representar um alvo específico para os invasores. As autoridades fiscais alemãs falsas estão exigindo que os proprietários de carteiras “verifiquem seus ativos digitais” e citam os regulamentos da UE tendo como objetivo o cálculo de impostos. E, claro, há um “lado positivo”: obviamente, os ganhos com criptomoedas estão supostamente isentos de impostos! No entanto, para solicitar um benefício tão generoso, os usuários devem passar por um procedimento de “verificação”. O site ainda promete fazer a criptografia de dados usando um “protocolo SSL de 2048 bits”.

Para concluir o processo de “verificação”, os usuários são forçados a inserir a frase-semente, ou seja, a sequência exclusiva de palavras vinculadas a uma carteira de criptomoedas que concede acesso de recuperação total. Essa solicitação está associada a uma ameaça: a recusa em fornecer os dados levará a graves consequências legais, como multas de até um milhão de euros ou processo criminal.

Os invasores também aplicaram um golpe semelhante em usuários franceses. Eles criaram um “portal de conformidade tributária de criptomoedas” inexistente, que imita o design do site do ministério da economia e finanças da França. O site de phishing exige, agressivamente, que os residentes franceses enviem uma “declaração de ativos digitais”.

Depois que o usuário insere as informações pessoais, os golpistas solicitam que eles insiram manualmente a frase-semente ou “vinculem” a carteira de criptomoedas ao portal. Se a vítima seguir em frente, as carteiras MetaMask, Binance, Coinbase, Trust Wallet ou WalletConnect serão drenadas.

A IA pode ajudar com as declarações de impostos?

Quando você tem IA à disposição, capaz de gerar texto instantaneamente e preencher planilhas, há uma forte tentação de delegar tudo a ela. Infelizmente, isso pode gerar sérias consequências. Em primeiro lugar, todos os chatbots populares processam os dados em seus respectivos servidores, o que coloca suas informações confidenciais em risco de vazamento. Em segundo lugar, é comum que eles cometam erros incrivelmente tolos, e isso pode resultar em problemas reais com o fisco.

Antes de informar a um chatbot ou agente de IA quanto você ganhou no ano passado, juntamente com dados pessoais e bancários detalhados, lembre-se da frequência com que ocorrem vazamentos em serviços de IA e considere os riscos. Não informe sua renda para a IA, não forneça detalhes pessoais, como nome ou endereço, e, sob hipótese alguma, não carregue fotos ou números de documentos vitais, como passaportes, informações de seguro ou números de previdência social. Os arquivos que contêm informações confidenciais devem ser mantidos em contêineres criptografados, como o [placeholder KPM].

Se, mesmo assim, você ainda quiser usar ferramentas de IA, é recomendável executá-las localmente. Isso pode ser feito gratuitamente até mesmo em um laptop padrão, e já mostramos como configurar modelos de linguagem locais usando o DeepSeek como um exemplo. No entanto, a qualidade da saída desses modelos é geralmente inferior. É bem possível que a verificação dupla de cada dígito em uma resposta gerada por IA leve mais tempo do que apenas preencher a papelada manualmente. Não se esqueça, você é o único responsável perante a administração fiscal por quaisquer erros, e não a IA.

Por fim, fique atento aos modelos de phishing por IA que oferecem “assistência” com a declaração de impostos. Os especialistas da Kaspersky descobriram sites que pedem aos usuários o envio de notas fiscais, supostamente para a geração automatizada de declarações e solicitações de dedução. Porém, o que acontecia, de fato, era que os invasores coletavam os dados pessoais para revender na dark web ou para usar em futuros ataques de phishing, chantagem e esquemas de extorsão.

Lembre-se de que serviços legítimos de IA alertam para não compartilhar dados confidenciais, e documentos fiscais se enquadram nessa categoria. Quaisquer ferramentas de IA que prometem oferecer ajuda para lidar com a papelada fiscal são simplesmente uma farsa.

Como proteger a si mesmo e às suas informações

• Faça você mesmo a sua declaração. O risco de encontrar golpistas é extremamente alto. Mesmo que uma empresa de consultoria seja legítima, a empresa receberá um dossiê completo seu: detalhes do passaporte, informações de emprego e renda, endereço e muito mais. Não se esqueça de que mesmo os serviços mais honestos não estão imunes a ataques e violações de dados.
• Cuidado com sites falsos. Use uma solução de segurança confiável que impede a visita a sites de phishing e bloqueia downloads de arquivos maliciosos.
• Mantenha todos os documentos importantes criptografados. Armazenar fotos, notas ou arquivos na área de trabalho ou manter mensagens com estrela em um aplicativo de mensagens não é uma forma segura de lidar com dados confidenciais. Um cofre seguro como o Kaspersky Password Manager pode armazenar mais do que apenas senhas e informações de cartão de crédito: ele também pode proteger documentos e até fotos.
• Não confie na IA. Mesmo os chatbots mais avançados são propensos a erros e alucinações e, em princípio, os desenvolvedores podem ler qualquer conversa que você tenha com a IA. Se você absolutamente precisar usar a IA, instale e execute uma versão local em seu próprio computador.
• Siga apenas os canais oficiais. O “inspetor fiscal chefe” do seu país ou cidade definitivamente não enviará uma mensagem para você, pois funcionários de alto escalão têm coisas mais importantes a fazer. Contate as autoridades fiscais apenas por canais oficiais e verifique o remetente de todos os e-mails recebidos. Na maioria das vezes, mesmo uma pequena diferença no nome ou no endereço é um sinal que revela uma campanha de phishing.

Leitura adicional sobre phishing e segurança de dados:

• Phishing e spam: as campanhas mais ousadas de 2025
• Como phishers e golpistas usam IA
• O que acontece com os dados roubados em ataques de phishing?
• Como desaparecer da Internet
• Descubra por que os corretores de dados criam dossiês sobre você e como impedir que eles façam isso

In 2025, the financial cyberthreat landscape continued to evolve. While traditional PC banking malware declined in relative prevalence, this shift was offset by the rapid growth of credential theft by infostealers. Attackers increasingly relied on aggregation and reuse of stolen data, rather than developing entirely new malware capabilities.

To describe the financial threat landscape in 2025, we analyzed anonymized data on malicious activities detected on the devices of Kaspersky security product users and consensually provided to us through the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), along with publicly available data and data on the dark web.

We analyzed the data for

• financial phishing,
• banking malware,
• infostealers and the dark web.

Key findings

Phishing

Phishing activity in 2025 shifted toward e-commerce (14.17%) and digital services (16.15%), with attackers increasingly tailoring campaigns to regional trends and user behavior, making social engineering more targeted despite reduced focus on traditional banking lures.

Banking malware

Financial PC malware declined in prevalence but remained a persistent threat, with established families continuing to operate, while attackers increasingly prioritize credential access and indirect fraud over deploying complex banking Trojans. To the contrary, mobile banking malware continues growing, as we wrote in detail in our mobile malware report.

Infostealers and the dark web

Infostealers became a central driver of financial cybercrime, fueling a growing dark web economy where stolen credentials, payment data, and full identity profiles are traded at scale, enabling widespread and destructive fraud operations.

Financial phishing

In 2025, online fraudsters continued to lure users to phishing and scam pages that mimicked the websites of popular brands and financial organizations. Attackers leveraged increasingly convincing social engineering techniques and brand impersonation to exploit user trust. Rather than relying solely on volume, campaigns showed greater targeting and contextual adaptation, reflecting a maturation of phishing operations.

The distribution of top phishing categories in 2025 shows a clear shift toward digital platforms that aggregate multiple user activities, with web services (16.15%), online games (14.58%), and online stores (14.17%) leading globally. Compared to 2024, the rise of online games and the decline of social networks and banks indicate that attackers are increasingly targeting environments where users are more likely to take a risk or engage impulsively. Categories such as instant messaging apps and global internet portals remain significant phishing targets, reflecting their role as communication and access hubs that can be exploited for credential harvesting.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices, 2025 (download)

Regional patterns further reinforce the adaptive nature of phishing campaigns, showing that attackers closely align category targeting with local digital habits. For example, online stores dominate heavily in the Middle East.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in the Middle East, 2025 (download)

Online games and instant messaging platforms feature more prominently in the CIS, suggesting a focus on younger or highly connected user bases.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in the CIS, 2025 (download)

APAC demonstrates almost equal shares of online games and banks which signifies a combined approach targeting different users.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in APAC, 2025 (download)

In Africa, a stronger emphasis on banks reflects the continued importance of traditional financial services. Most likely, this is due to the lower security level of the financial institutions in the region.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in Africa, 2025 (download)

Whereas in LATAM, delivery companies appearing in the top categories indicate attackers exploiting the growth of e-commerce logistics.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in Latin America, 2025 (download)

Europe presents a more balanced distribution across categories, pointing to diversified attack strategies.

TOP 10 categories of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages that were blocked on home users’ devices in Europe, 2025 (download)

Attackers actively localize their tactics to maximize relevance and effectiveness.

The distribution of financial phishing pages by category in 2025 reveals strong regional asymmetries that reflect both user behavior and attacker prioritization.

Globally, online stores dominated (48.45%), followed by banks (26.05%) and payment systems (25.50%). The decline in bank phishing may suggest that these services are becoming increasingly difficult to successfully impersonate, so fraudsters are turning to easier ways to access users’ finances.

However, this balance shifts significantly at the regional level.

In the Middle East, phishing is overwhelmingly concentrated on e-commerce (85.8%), indicating a heavy reliance on online retail lures, whereas in Africa, bank-related phishing leads (53.75%), which may indicate that user account security there is still insufficient. LATAM shows a more balanced distribution but with a higher share of online store targeting (46.30%), while APAC and Europe display a more even spread across all three categories, pointing to diversified attack strategies. These variations suggest that attackers are not operating uniformly but are instead adapting campaigns to regional digital habits, payment ecosystems, and trust patterns – maximizing effectiveness by aligning phishing content with the most commonly used financial services in each market.

Distribution of financial phishing pages by category and region, 2025 (download)

Online shopping scams

The distribution of organizations mimicked by phishing and scam pages in 2025 highlights a clear shift toward globally recognized digital service and e-commerce brands, with attackers prioritizing platforms that have large, active user bases and frequent payment interactions.

Netflix (28.42%) solidified its ranking as the most impersonated brand, followed by Apple (20.55%), Spotify (18.09%), and Amazon (17.85%). This reflects a move away from traditional retail-only targets toward subscription-based and ecosystem-driven services.

TOP 10 online shopping brands mimicked by phishing and scam pages, 2025 (download)

Regionally, this trend varies: Netflix dominates heavily in the Middle East, Apple leads in APAC, while Spotify ranks first across Europe, LATAM, and Africa. Although most of the top platforms are highly popular across different regions, we may suggest that the attackers tailor brand impersonation to regional popularity and user engagement.

Payment system phishing

Phishing campaigns are impersonating multiple payment ecosystems to maximize coverage. While PayPal was the most mimicked in 2024 with 37.53%, its share dropped to 14.10% in 2025. Mastercard, on the contrary, attracted cybercriminals’ attention, its share increasing from 30.54% to 33.45%, while Visa accounted for a significant 20.06% (last year, it wasn’t in the TOP 5), reinforcing the growing focus on widely used banking card networks. The continued presence of American Express (3.87%) and the increasing number of pages mimicking PayPay (11.72%) further highlight attacker experimentation and regional adaptation.

TOP 5 payment systems mimicked by phishing and scam pages, 2025 (download)

Financial malware

In 2025, the decline in users affected by financial PC malware continued. On the one hand, people continue to rely on mobile devices to manage their finances. On the other hand, some of the most prominent malware families that were initially designed as bankers had not used this functionality for years, so we excluded them from these statistics.

Changes in the number of unique users attacked by banking malware, by month, 2023–2025 (download)

Windows systems remained the primary platform targeted by attackers with financial malware. According to Kaspersky Security Bulletin, overall detections included 1,338,357 banking Trojan attacks globally from November 2024 to October 2025, though this number is also declining due to increasing focus on mobile vectors. Desktop threats continued to be distributed via traditional delivery methods like malicious emails, compromised websites, and droppers.

In 2025, Brazilian-origin families such as Grandoreiro (part of the Tetrade group) stood out for their constant activity and global reach. Despite a major law enforcement disruption in early 2024, Grandoreiro remained active in 2025, re-emerging with updated variants and continuing to operate. Other notable actors included Coyote and emerging families like Maverick, which abused WhatsApp for distribution while maintaining fileless techniques and overlaps with established Brazilian banking malware to steal credentials and enable fraudulent transactions on desktop banking platforms. Besides traditional bankers, other Brazilian malware families are worth mentioning, which specifically target relatively new and highly popular regional payment systems. One of the most prominent threats among these is GoPix Trojan focusing on the users of Brazilian Pix payment system. It is also capable of targeting local Boleto payment method, as well as stealing cryptocurrency.

There was also a surge in incidents in 2025 in which fraudsters targeted organizations through electronic document management (EDM) systems, for example, by substituting invoice details to trick victims into transferring funds. The Pure Trojan was most frequently encountered in such attacks. Attackers typically distribute it through targeted emails, using abbreviations of document names, software titles, or other accounting-related keywords in the headers of attached files. Globally in the corporate segment, Pure was detected 896 633 times over 2025, with over 64 thousand users attacked.

Contrary to PC banking malware, mobile banker attacks grew by 1.5 times in 2025 compared to the previous reporting period, which is consistent with their growth in 2024. They also saw a sharp surge in the number of unique installation packages. More statistics and trends on mobile banking malware can be found in our yearly mobile threat report.

Complementing traditional financial malware, infostealers played a significant role in enabling financial crime both on PCs and mobile devices by harvesting credentials, cookies, and autofill data from browsers and applications, which attackers then used for account takeovers or direct banking fraud. Kaspersky analyses pointed to a surge in infostealer detections (up by 59% globally on PCs), fueling credential-based attacks.

Financial cyberthreats on the dark web

The Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence (DFI) team closely monitors infostealer activity on both PC and mobile devices to analyze emerging trends and assess the evolving tactics of cybercriminals.

Fraudsters especially target financial data such as payment cards, cryptocurrency wallets, login credentials and cookies for banking services, as well as documents stored on the victim’s device. The stolen data is collected in log files and shared on dark web resources, where they are bought, sold, or distributed freely and then used for financial fraud.

With access to financial data, fraudsters can gain control of users’ bank accounts and payment cards, and withdraw funds. Compromised accounts and cards are also frequently used in subsequent activities, turning the victims into intermediaries in a fraud scheme.

Compromised accounts

Kaspersky DFI found that in 2025, over one million online banking accounts (these are not Kaspersky product users) served by the world’s 100 largest banks fell victim to infostealers: their credentials were being freely shared on the dark web.

The countries with the highest median number of compromised accounts per bank were India, Spain, and Brazil.

The chart below shows the median number of compromised accounts per bank for the TOP 10 countries.

TOP 10 countries with the highest compromised account median (download)

Compromised payment cards

Seventy-four percent of payment cards that were compromised by infostealer malware, published on dark web resources and identified by the Digital Footprint Intelligence team in 2025, remained valid as of March 2026. This means that attackers could still use the cards that had been stolen months or even years prior.

It should be noted that the number of bank accounts and payment cards known to have been compromised by infostealers in 2025 will continue to rise, because fraudsters do not publish the log files immediately after the compromise but only after a delay of months or even years.

Data breaches

Regardless of the industry in which the target company operates, data breaches often expose users’ financial data, including payment card information, bank account details, transaction histories and other financial information. As a consequence, the compromised databases are sold and distributed on underground resources.

It should be noted that the threat is not limited to the exposure of financial information alone. Various identity documents and even seemingly public data, such as names, phone numbers and email addresses, can become a risk when they are published on the dark web. Such data attracts fraudsters’ attention and can be used in social engineering attacks to gain access to the user’s financial assets.

Sale of bank accounts and payment cards

The dark web often features services provided by stores that specialize in selling bank accounts and payment cards. Fraudsters typically obtain data for sale from a variety of sources, including infostealer logs and leaked databases, which are first repackaged and then combined.

Often, sellers offer complete victim profiles, referred to by fraudsters as “fullz”. These include not only bank accounts or payment cards but also identification documents, dates of birth, residential addresses, and other personal details. A full‑information package is usually more expensive than a payment card or a bank account alone.

Compiled databases

Fraudsters exploit various sources, including previously leaked databases, to compile new, thematic ones. Finance- and, in particular, cryptocurrency-related databases, are among the most popular. Compilations aimed at specific user groups, such as the elderly or wealthy people, are also of interest to cybercriminals.

Usually, thematic databases contain personal information about users, such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Fraudsters can use this data to launch social engineering attacks.

Creation of phishing websites

Phishing websites have become a powerful tool for the financial enrichment of fraudsters. Cybercriminals create fraudulent sites that masquerade as legitimate resources of companies operating in various industries. Gambling and retail sites remain among the most popular targets.

In order to obtain personal and financial information from unsuspecting users, adversaries seek out ways to create such phishing websites. Ready-made layouts and website copies are sold on the dark web and advertised as profitable tools. Moreover, fraudsters offer phishing website creation services.

Conclusion

The decline of traditional PC banking malware is not an indicator of reduced risk; rather, it highlights a redistribution of attacker effort toward more efficient methods targeting mobile devices, credential theft, and social engineering. Infostealers, in particular, are a force multiplier, enabling widespread compromise at scale.

Looking ahead to 2026, the financial threat landscape is expected to become even more data-driven and automated. Organizations must adapt by focusing on identity protection, real-time monitoring, and cross-channel threat intelligence, while users must remain vigilant against increasingly sophisticated and personalized attack techniques.

The year in figures

• 44.99% of all emails sent worldwide and 43.27% of all emails sent in the Russian web segment were spam
• 32.50% of all spam emails were sent from Russia
• Kaspersky Mail Anti-Virus blocked 144,722,674 malicious email attachments
• Our Anti-Phishing system thwarted 554,002,207 attempts to follow phishing links

Phishing and scams in 2025

Entertainment-themed phishing attacks and scams

In 2025, online streaming services remained a primary theme for phishing sites within the entertainment sector, typically by offering early access to major premieres ahead of their official release dates. Alongside these, there was a notable increase in phishing pages mimicking ticket aggregation platforms for live events. Cybercriminals lured users with offers of free tickets to see popular artists on pages that mirrored the branding of major ticket distributors. To participate in these “promotions”, victims were required to pay a nominal processing or ticket-shipping fee. Naturally, after paying the fee, the users never received any tickets.

In addition to concert-themed bait, other music-related scams gained significant traction. Users were directed to phishing pages and prompted to “vote for their favorite artist”, a common activity within fan communities. To bolster credibility, the scammers leveraged the branding of major companies like Google and Spotify. This specific scheme was designed to harvest credentials for multiple platforms simultaneously, as users were required to sign in with their Facebook, Instagram, or email credentials to participate.

As a pretext for harvesting Spotify credentials, attackers offered users a way to migrate their playlists to YouTube. To complete the transfer, victims were to just enter their Spotify credentials.

Beyond standard phishing, threat actors leveraged Spotify’s popularity for scams. In Brazil, scammers promoted a scheme where users were purportedly paid to listen to and rate songs.

To “withdraw” their earnings, users were required to provide their identification number for PIX, Brazil’s instant payment system.

Users were then prompted to verify their identity. To do so, the victim was required to make a small, one-time “verification payment”, an amount significantly lower than the potential earnings.

The form for submitting this “verification payment” was designed to appear highly authentic, even requesting various pieces of personal data. It is highly probable that this data was collected for use in subsequent attacks.

In another variation, users were invited to participate in a survey in exchange for a $1000 gift card. However, in a move typical of a scam, the victim was required to pay a small processing or shipping fee to claim the prize. Once the funds were transferred, the attackers vanished, and the website was taken offline.

Even deciding to go to an art venue with a girl from a dating site could result in financial loss. In this scenario, the “date” would suggest an in-person meeting after a brief period of rapport-building. They would propose a relatively inexpensive outing, such as a movie or a play at a niche theater. The scammer would go so far as to provide a link to a specific page where the victim could supposedly purchase tickets for the event.

To enhance the site’s perceived legitimacy, it even prompted the user to select their city of residence.

However, once the “ticket payment” was completed, both the booking site and the individual from the dating platform would vanish.

A similar tactic was employed by scam sites selling tickets for escape rooms. The design of these pages closely mirrored legitimate websites to lower the target’s guard.

Phishing pages masquerading as travel portals often capitalize on a sense of urgency, betting that a customer eager to book a “last-minute deal” will overlook an illegitimate URL. For example, the fraudulent page shown below offered exclusive tours of Japan, purportedly from a major Japanese tour operator.

Sensitive data at risk: phishing via government services

To harvest users’ personal data, attackers utilized a traditional phishing framework: fraudulent forms for document processing on sites posing as government portals. The visual design and content of these phishing pages meticulously replicated legitimate websites, offering the same services found on official sites. In Brazil, for instance, attackers collected personal data from individuals under the pretext of issuing a Rural Property Registration Certificate (CCIR).

Through this method, fraudsters tried to gain access to the victim’s highly sensitive information, including their individual taxpayer registry (CPF) number. This identifier serves as a unique key for every Brazilian national to access private accounts on government portals. It is also utilized in national databases and displayed on personal identification documents, making its interception particularly dangerous. Scammer access to this data poses a severe risk of identity theft, unauthorized access to government platforms, and financial exposure.

Furthermore, users were at risk of direct financial loss: in certain instances, the attackers requested a “processing fee” to facilitate the issuance of the important document.

Fraudsters also employed other methods to obtain CPF numbers. Specifically, we discovered phishing pages mimicking the official government service portal, which requires the CPF for sign-in.

Another theme exploited by scammers involved government payouts. In 2025, Singaporean citizens received government vouchers ranging from $600 to $800 in honor of the country’s 60th anniversary. To redeem these, users were required to sign in to the official program website. Fraudsters rushed to create web pages designed to mimic this site. Interestingly, the primary targets in this campaign were Telegram accounts, despite the fact that Telegram credentials were not a requirement for signing in to the legitimate portal.

We also identified a scam targeting users in Norway who were looking to renew or replace their driver’s licenses. Upon opening a website masquerading as the official Norwegian Public Roads Administration website, visitors were prompted to enter their vehicle registration and phone numbers.

Next, the victim was prompted for sensitive data, such as the personal identification number unique to every Norwegian citizen. By doing so, the attackers not only gained access to confidential information but also reinforced the illusion that the victim was interacting with an official website.

Once the personal data was submitted, a fraudulent page would appear, requesting a “processing fee” of 1200 kroner. If the victim entered their credit card details, the funds were transferred directly to the scammers with no possibility of recovery.

In Germany, attackers used the pretext of filing tax returns to trick users into providing their email user names and passwords on phishing pages.

A call to urgent action is a classic tactic in phishing scenarios. When combined with the threat of losing property, these schemes become highly effective bait, distracting potential victims from noticing an incorrect URL or a poorly designed website. For example, a phishing warning regarding unpaid vehicle taxes was used as a tool by attackers targeting credentials for the UK government portal.

We have observed that since the spring of 2025, there has been an increase in emails mimicking automated notifications from the Russian government services portal. These messages were distributed under the guise of application status updates and contained phishing links.

We also recorded vishing attacks targeting users of government portals. Victims were prompted to “verify account security” by calling a support number provided in the email. To lower the users’ guard, the attackers included fabricated technical details in the emails, such as the IP address, device model, and timestamp of an alleged unauthorized sign-in.

Last year, attackers also disguised vishing emails as notifications from microfinance institutions or credit bureaus regarding new loan applications. The scammers banked on the likelihood that the recipient had not actually applied for a loan. They would then prompt the victim to contact a fake support service via a spoofed support number.

Know Your Customer

As an added layer of data security, many services now implement biometric verification (facial recognition, fingerprints, and retina scans), as well as identity document verification and digital signatures. To harvest this data, fraudsters create clones of popular platforms that utilize these verification protocols. We have previously detailed the mechanics of this specific type of data theft.

In 2025, we observed a surge in phishing attacks targeting users under the guise of Know Your Customer (KYC) identity verification. KYC protocols rely on a specific set of user data for identification. By spoofing the pages of payment services such as Vivid Money, fraudsters harvested the information required to pass KYC authentication.

Notably, this threat also impacted users of various other platforms that utilize KYC procedures.

A distinctive feature of attacks on the KYC process is that, in addition to the victim’s full name, email address, and phone number, phishers request photos of their passport or face, sometimes from multiple angles. If this information falls into the hands of threat actors, the consequences extend beyond the loss of account access; the victim’s credentials can be sold on dark web marketplaces, a trend we have highlighted in previous reports.

Messaging app phishing

Account hijacking on messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram remains one of the primary objectives of phishing and scam operations. While traditional tactics, such as suspicious links embedded in messages, have been well-known for some time, the methods used to steal credentials are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

For instance, Telegram users were invited to participate in a prize giveaway purportedly hosted by a famous athlete. This phishing attack, which masqueraded as an NFT giveaway, was executed through a Telegram Mini App. This marks a shift in tactics, as attackers previously relied on external web pages for these types of schemes.

In 2025, new variations emerged within the familiar framework of distributing phishing links via Telegram. For example, we observed prompts inviting users to vote for the “best dentist” or “best COO” in town.

The most prevalent theme in these voting-based schemes, children’s contests, was distributed primarily through WhatsApp. These phishing pages showed little variety; attackers utilized a standardized website design and set of “bait” photos, simply localizing the language based on the target audience’s geographic location.

To participate in the vote, the victim was required to enter the phone number linked to their WhatsApp account.

They were then prompted to provide a one-time authentication code for the messaging app.

The following are several other popular methods used by fraudsters to hijack user credentials.

In China, phishing pages meticulously replicated the WhatsApp interface. Victims were notified that their accounts had purportedly been flagged for “illegal activity”, necessitating “additional verification”.

The victim was redirected to a page to enter their phone number, followed by a request for their authorization code.

In other instances, users received messages allegedly from WhatsApp support regarding account authentication via SMS. As with the other scenarios described, the attackers’ objective was to obtain the authentication code required to hijack the account.

Fraudsters enticed WhatsApp users with an offer to link an app designed to “sync communications” with business contacts.

To increase the perceived legitimacy of the phishing site, the attackers even prompted users to create custom credentials for the page.

After that, the user was required to “purchase a subscription” to activate the application. This allowed the scammers to harvest credit card data, leaving the victim without the promised service.

To lure Telegram users, phishers distributed invitations to online dating chats.

Attackers also heavily leveraged the promise of free Telegram Premium subscriptions. While these phishing pages were previously observed only in Russian and English, the linguistic scope of these campaigns expanded significantly this year. As in previous iterations, activating the subscription required the victim to sign in to their account, which could result in the loss of account access.

Exploiting the ChatGPT hype

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being leveraged by attackers as bait. For example, we have identified fraudulent websites mimicking the official payment page for ChatGPT Plus subscriptions.

Social media marketing through LLMs was also a potential focal point for user interest. Scammers offered “specialized prompt kits” designed for social media growth; however, once payment was received, they vanished, leaving victims without the prompts or their money.

The promise of easy income through neural networks has emerged as another tactic to attract potential victims. Fraudsters promoted using ChatGPT to place bets, promising that the bot would do all the work while the user collected the profits. These services were offered at a “special price” valid for only 15 minutes after the page was opened. This narrow window prevented the victim from critically evaluating the impulse purchase.

Job opportunities with a catch

To attract potential victims, scammers exploited the theme of employment by offering high-paying remote positions. Applicants responding to these advertisements did more than just disclose their personal data; in some cases, fraudsters requested a small sum under the pretext of document processing or administrative fees. To convince victims that the offer was legitimate, attackers impersonated major brands, leveraging household names to build trust. This allowed them to lower the victims’ guard, even when the employment terms sounded too good to be true.

We also observed schemes where, after obtaining a victim’s data via a phishing site, scammers would follow up with a phone call – a tactic aimed at tricking the user into disclosing additional personal data.

By analyzing current job market trends, threat actors also targeted popular career paths to steal messaging app credentials. These phishing schemes were tailored to specific regional markets. For example, in the UAE, fake “employment agency” websites were circulating.

In a more sophisticated variation, users were asked to complete a questionnaire that required the phone number linked to their Telegram account.

To complete the registration, users were prompted for a code which, in reality, was a Telegram authorization code.

Notably, the registration process did not end there; the site continued to request additional information to “set up an account” on the fraudulent platform. This served to keep victims in the dark, maintaining their trust in the malicious site’s perceived legitimacy.

After finishing the registration, the victim was told to wait 24 hours for “verification”, though the scammers’ primary objective, hijacking the Telegram account, had already been achieved.

Simpler phishing schemes were also observed, where users were redirected to a page mimicking the Telegram interface. By entering their phone number and authorization code, victims lost access to their accounts.

Job seekers were not the only ones targeted by scammers. Employers’ accounts were also in the crosshairs, specifically on a major Russian recruitment portal. On a counterfeit page, the victim was asked to “verify their account” in order to post a job listing, which required them to enter their actual sign-in credentials for the legitimate site.

Spam in 2025

Malicious attachments

Password-protected archives

Attackers began aggressively distributing messages with password-protected malicious archives in 2024. Throughout 2025, these archives remained a popular vector for spreading malware, and we observed a variety of techniques designed to bypass security solutions.

For example, threat actors sent emails impersonating law firms, threatening victims with legal action over alleged “unauthorized domain name use”. The recipient was prompted to review potential pre-trial settlement options detailed in an attached document. The attachment consisted of an unprotected archive containing a secondary password-protected archive and a file with the password. Disguised as a legal document within this inner archive was a malicious WSF file, which installed a Trojan into the system via startup. The Trojan then stealthily downloaded and installed Tor, which allowed it to regularly exfiltrate screenshots to the attacker-controlled C2 server.

In addition to archives, we also encountered password-protected PDF files containing malicious links over the past year.

E-signature service exploits

Emails using the pretext of “signing a document” to coerce users into clicking phishing links or opening malicious attachments were quite common in 2025. The most prevalent scheme involved fraudulent notifications from electronic signature services. While these were primarily used for phishing, one specific malware sample identified within this campaign is of particular interest.

The email, purportedly sent from a well-known document-sharing platform, notified the recipient that they had been granted access to a “contract” attached to the message. However, the attachment was not the expected PDF; instead, it was a nested email file named after the contract. The body of this nested message mirrored the original, but its attachment utilized a double extension: a malicious SVG file containing a Trojan was disguised as a PDF document. This multi-layered approach was likely an attempt to obfuscate the malware and bypass security filters.

“Business correspondence” impersonating industrial companies

In the summer of last year, we observed mailshots sent in the name of various existing industrial enterprises. These emails contained DOCX attachments embedded with Trojans. Attackers coerced victims into opening the malicious files under the pretext of routine business tasks, such as signing a contract or drafting a report.

The authors of this malicious campaign attempted to lower users’ guard by using legitimate industrial sector domains in the “From” address. Furthermore, the messages were routed through the mail servers of a reputable cloud provider, ensuring the technical metadata appeared authentic. Consequently, even a cautious user could mistake the email for a genuine communication, open the attachment, and compromise their device.

Attacks on hospitals

Hospitals were a popular target for threat actors this past year: they were targeted with malicious emails impersonating well-known insurance providers. Recipients were threatened with legal action regarding alleged “substandard medical services”. The attachments, described as “medical records and a written complaint from an aggrieved patient”, were actually malware. Our solutions detect this threat as Backdoor.Win64.BrockenDoor, a backdoor capable of harvesting system information and executing malicious commands on the infected device.

We also came across emails with a different narrative. In those instances, medical staff were requested to facilitate a patient transfer from another hospital for ongoing observation and treatment. These messages referenced attached medical files containing diagnostic and treatment history, which were actually archives containing malicious payloads.

To bolster the perceived legitimacy of these communications, attackers did more than just impersonate famous insurers and medical institutions; they registered look-alike domains that mimicked official organizations’ domains by appending keywords such as “-insurance” or “-med.” Furthermore, to lower the victims’ guard, scammers included a fake “Scanned by Email Security” label.

Messages containing instructions to run malicious scripts

Last year, we observed unconventional infection chains targeting end-user devices. Threat actors continued to distribute instructions for downloading and executing malicious code, rather than attaching the malware files directly. To convince the recipient to follow these steps, attackers typically utilized a lure involving a “critical software update” or a “system patch” to fix a purported vulnerability. Generally, the first step in the instructions required launching the command prompt with administrative privileges, while the second involved entering a command to download and execute the malware: either a script or an executable file.

In some instances, these instructions were contained within a PDF file. The victim was prompted to copy a command into PowerShell that was neither obfuscated nor hidden. Such schemes target non-technical users who would likely not understand the command’s true intent and would unknowingly infect their own devices.

Scams

Law enforcement impersonation scams in the Russian web segment

In 2025, extortion campaigns involving actors posing as law enforcement – a trend previously more prevalent in Europe – were adapted to target users across the Commonwealth of Independent States.

For example, we identified messages disguised as criminal subpoenas or summonses purportedly issued by Russian law enforcement agencies. However, the specific departments cited in these emails never actually existed. The content of these “summonses” would also likely raise red flags for a cautious user. This blackmail scheme relied on the victim, in their state of panic, not scrutinizing the contents of the fake summons.

To intimidate recipients, the attackers referenced legal frameworks and added forged signatures and seals to the “subpoenas”. In reality, neither the cited statutes nor the specific civil service positions exist in Russia.

We observed similar attacks – employing fabricated government agencies and fictitious legal acts – in other CIS countries, such as Belarus.

Fraudulent investment schemes

Threat actors continued to aggressively exploit investment themes in their email scams. These emails typically promise stable, remote income through “exclusive” investment opportunities. This remains one of the most high-volume and adaptable categories of email scams. Threat actors embedded fraudulent links both directly within the message body and inside various types of attachments: PDF, DOC, PPTX, and PNG files. Furthermore, they increasingly leveraged legitimate Google services, such as Google Docs, YouTube, and Google Forms, to distribute these communications. The link led to the site of the “project” where the victim was prompted to provide their phone number and email. Subsequently, users were invited to invest in a non-existent project.

We have previously documented these mailshots: they were originally targeted at Russian-speaking users and were primarily distributed under the guise of major financial institutions. However, in 2025, this investment-themed scam expanded into other CIS countries and Europe. Furthermore, the range of industries that spammers impersonated grew significantly. For instance, in their emails, attackers began soliciting investments for projects supposedly led by major industrial-sector companies in Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic.

Fraudulent “brand partner” recruitment

This specific scam operates through a multi-stage workflow. First, the target company receives a communication from an individual claiming to represent a well-known global brand, inviting them to register as a certified supplier or business partner. To bolster the perceived authenticity of the offer, the fraudsters send the victim an extensive set of forged documents. Once these documents are signed, the victim is instructed to pay a “deposit”, which the attackers claim will be fully refunded once the partnership is officially established.

These mailshots were first detected in 2025 and have rapidly become one of the most prevalent forms of email-based fraud. In December 2025 alone, we blocked over 80,000 such messages. These campaigns specifically targeted the B2B sector and were notable for their high level of variation – ranging from their technical properties to the diversity of the message content and the wide array of brands the attackers chose to impersonate.

Fraudulent overdue rent notices

Last year, we identified a new theme in email scams: recipients were notified that the payment deadline for a leased property had expired and were urged to settle the “debt” immediately. To prevent the victim from sending funds to their actual landlord, the email claimed that banking details had changed. The “debtor” was then instructed to request the new payment information – which, of course, belonged to the fraudsters. These mailshots primarily targeted French-speaking countries; however, in December 2025, we discovered a similar scam variant in German.

QR codes in scam letters

In 2025, we observed a trend where QR codes were utilized not only in phishing attempts but also in extortion emails. In a classic blackmail scam, the user is typically intimidated by claims that hackers have gained access to sensitive data. To prevent the public release of this information, the attackers demand a ransom payment to their cryptocurrency wallet.

Previously, to bypass email filters, scammers attempted to obfuscate the wallet address by using various noise contamination techniques. In last year’s campaigns, however, scammers shifted to including a QR code that contained the cryptocurrency wallet address.

News agenda

As in previous years, spammers in 2025 aggressively integrated current events into their fraudulent messaging to increase engagement.

For example, following the launch of $TRUMP memecoins surrounding Donald Trump’s inauguration, we identified scam campaigns promoting the “Trump Meme Coin” and “Trump Digital Trading Cards”. In these instances, scammers enticed victims to click a link to claim “free NFTs”.

We also observed ads offering educational credentials. Spammers posted these ads as comments on legacy, unmoderated forums; this tactic ensured that notifications were automatically pushed to all users subscribed to the thread. These notifications either displayed the fraudulent link directly in the comment preview or alerted users to a new post that redirected them to spammers’ sites.

In the summer, when the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became a major global news story, users began receiving Nigerian-style scam messages purportedly from Bezos himself, as well as from his former wife, MacKenzie Scott. These emails promised recipients substantial sums of money, framed either as charitable donations or corporate compensation from Amazon.

During the BLACKPINK world tour, we observed a wave of spam advertising “luggage scooters”. The scammers claimed these were the exact motorized suitcases used by the band members during their performances.

Finally, in the fall of 2025, traditionally timed to coincide with the launch of new iPhones, we identified scam campaigns featuring surveys that offered participants a chance to “win” a fictitious iPhone 17 Pro.

After completing a brief survey, the user was prompted to provide their contact information and physical address, as well as pay a “delivery fee” – which was the scammers’ ultimate objective. Upon entering their credit card details into the fraudulent site, the victim risked losing not only the relatively small delivery charge but also the entire balance in their bank account.

The widespread popularity of Ozempic was also reflected in spam campaigns; users were bombarded with offers to purchase versions of the drug or questionable alternatives.

Localized news events also fall under the scrutiny of fraudsters, serving as the basis for scam narratives. For instance, last summer, coinciding with the opening of the tax season in South Africa, we began detecting phishing emails impersonating the South African Revenue Service (SARS). These messages notified taxpayers of alleged “outstanding balances” that required immediate settlement.

Methods of distributing email threats

Google services

In 2025, threat actors increasingly leveraged various Google services to distribute email-based threats. We observed the exploitation of Google Calendar: scammers would create an event containing a WhatsApp contact number in the description and send an invitation to the target. For instance, companies received emails regarding product inquiries that prompted them to move the conversation to the messaging app to discuss potential “collaboration”.

Spammers employed a similar tactic using Google Classroom. We identified samples offering SEO optimization services that likewise directed victims to a WhatsApp number for further communication.

We also detected the distribution of fraudulent links via legitimate YouTube notifications. Attackers would reply to user comments under various videos, triggering an automated email notification to the victim. This email contained a link to a video that displayed only a message urging the viewer to “check the description”, where the actual link to the scam site was located. As the victim received an email containing the full text of the fraudulent comment, they were often lured through this chain of links, eventually landing on the scam site.

Over the past two years or so, there has been a significant rise in attacks utilizing Google Forms. Fraudsters create a survey with an enticing title and place the scam messaging directly in the form’s description. They then submit the form themselves, entering the victims’ email addresses into the field for the respondent email. This triggers legitimate notifications from the Google Forms service to the targeted addresses. Because these emails originate from Google’s own mail servers, they appear authentic to most spam filters. The attackers rely on the victim focusing on the “bait” description containing the fraudulent link rather than the standard form header.

Google Groups also emerged as a popular tool for spam distribution last year. Scammers would create a group, add the victims’ email addresses as members, and broadcast spam through the service. This scheme proved highly effective: even if a security solution blocked the initial spam message, the user could receive a deluge of automated replies from other addresses on the member list.

At the end of 2025, we encountered a legitimate email in terms of technical metadata that was sent via Google and contained a fraudulent link. The message also included a verification code for the recipient’s email address. To generate this notification, scammers filled out the account registration form in a way that diverted the recipient’s attention toward a fraudulent site. For example, instead of entering a first and last name, the attackers inserted text such as “Personal Link” followed by a phishing URL, utilizing noise contamination techniques. By entering the victim’s email address into the registration field, the scammers triggered a legitimate system notification containing the fraudulent link.

OpenAI

In addition to Google services, spammers leveraged other platforms to distribute email threats, notably OpenAI, riding the wave of artificial intelligence popularity. In 2025, we observed emails sent via the OpenAI platform into which spammers had injected short messages, fraudulent links, or phone numbers.

This occurs during the account registration process on the OpenAI platform, where users are prompted to create an organization to generate an API key. Spammers placed their fraudulent content directly into the field designated for the organization’s name. They then added the victims’ email addresses as organization members, triggering automated platform invitations that delivered the fraudulent links or contact numbers directly to the targets.

Spear phishing and BEC attacks in 2025

QR codes

The use of QR codes in spear phishing has become a conventional tactic that threat actors continued to employ throughout 2025. Specifically, we observed the persistence of a major trend identified in our previous report: the distribution of phishing documents disguised as notifications from a company’s HR department.

In these campaigns, attackers impersonated HR team members, requesting that employees review critical documentation, such as a new corporate policy or code of conduct. These documents were typically attached to the email as PDF files.

To maintain the ruse, the PDF document contained a highly convincing call to action, prompting the user to scan a QR code to access the relevant file. While attackers previously embedded these codes directly into the body of the email, last year saw a significant shift toward placing them within attachments – most likely in an attempt to bypass email security filters.

Upon scanning the QR code within the attachment, the victim was redirected to a phishing page meticulously designed to mimic a Microsoft authentication form.

In addition to fraudulent HR notifications, threat actors created scheduled meetings within the victim’s email calendar, placing DOC or PDF files containing QR codes in the event descriptions. Leveraging calendar invites to distribute malicious links is a legacy technique that was widely observed during scam campaigns in 2019. After several years of relative dormancy, we saw a resurgence of this technique last year, now integrated into more sophisticated spear phishing operations.

In one specific example, the attachment was presented as a “new voicemail” notification. To listen to the recording, the user was prompted to scan a QR code and sign in to their account on the resulting page.

As in the previous scenario, scanning the code redirected the user to a phishing page, where they risked losing access to their Microsoft account or internal corporate sites.

Link protection services

Threat actors utilized more than just QR codes to hide phishing URLs and bypass security checks. In 2025, we discovered that fraudsters began weaponizing link protection services for the same purpose. The primary function of these services is to intercept and scan URLs at the moment of clicking to prevent users from reaching phishing sites or downloading malware. However, attackers are now abusing this technology by generating phishing links that security systems mistakenly categorize as “safe”.

This technique is employed in both mass and spear phishing campaigns. It is particularly dangerous in targeted attacks, which often incorporate employees’ personal data and mimic official corporate branding. When combined with these characteristics, a URL generated through a legitimate link protection service can significantly bolster the perceived authenticity of a phishing email.

After opening a URL that seemed safe, the user was directed to a phishing site.

BEC and fabricated email chains

In Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, threat actors have also begun employing new techniques, the most notable of which is the use of fake forwarded messages.

This BEC attack unfolded as follows. An employee would receive an email containing a previous conversation between the sender and another colleague. The final message in this thread was typically an automated out-of-office reply or a request to hand off a specific task to a new assignee. In reality, however, the entire initial conversation with the colleague was completely fabricated. These messages lacked the thread-index headers, as well as other critical header values, that would typically verify the authenticity of an actual email chain.

In the example at hand, the victim was pressured to urgently pay for a license using the provided banking details. The PDF attachments included wire transfer instructions and a counterfeit cover letter from the bank.

The bank does not actually have an office at the address provided in the documents.

Statistics: phishing

In 2025, Kaspersky solutions blocked 554,002,207 attempts to follow fraudulent links. In contrast to the trends of previous years, we did not observe any major spikes in phishing activity; instead, the volume of attacks remained relatively stable throughout the year, with the exception of a minor decline in December.

Anti-Phishing triggers, 2025 (download)

The phishing and scam landscape underwent a shift. While in 2024, we saw a high volume of mass attacks, their frequency declined in 2025. Furthermore, redirection-based schemes, which were frequently used for online fraud in 2024, became less prevalent in 2025.

Map of phishing attacks

As in the previous year, Peru remains the country with the highest percentage (17.46%) of users targeted by phishing attacks. Bangladesh (16.98%) took second place, entering the TOP 10 for the first time, while Malawi (16.65%), which was absent from the 2024 rankings, was third. Following these are Tunisia (16.19%), Colombia (15.67%), the latter also being a newcomer to the TOP 10, Brazil (15.48%), and Ecuador (15.27%). They are followed closely by Madagascar and Kenya, both with a 15.23% share of attacked users. Rounding out the list is Vietnam, which previously held the third spot, with a share of 15.05%.

Country/territory	Share of attacked users**
Peru	17.46%
Bangladesh	16.98%
Malawi	16.65%
Tunisia	16.19%
Colombia	15.67%
Brazil	15.48%
Ecuador	15.27%
Madagascar	15.23%
Kenya	15.23%
Vietnam	15.05%

** Share of users who encountered phishing out of the total number of Kaspersky users in the country/territory, 2025

Top-level domains

In 2025, breaking a trend that had persisted for several years, the majority of phishing pages were hosted within the XYZ TLD zone, accounting for 21.64% – a three-fold increase compared to 2024. The second most popular zone was TOP (15.45%), followed by BUZZ (13.58%). This high demand can be attributed to the low cost of domain registration in these zones. The COM domain, which had previously held the top spot consistently, fell to fourth place (10.52%). It is important to note that this decline is partially driven by the popularity of typosquatting attacks: threat actors frequently spoof sites within the COM domain by using alternative suffixes, such as example-com.site instead of example.com. Following COM is the BOND TLD, entering the TOP 10 for the first time with a 5.56% share. As this zone is typically associated with financial websites, the surge in malicious interest there is a logical progression for financial phishing. The sixth and seventh positions are held by ONLINE (3.39%) and SITE (2.02%), which occupied the fourth and fifth spots, respectively, in 2024. In addition, three domain zones that had not previously appeared in our statistics emerged as popular hosting environments for phishing sites. These included the CFD domain (1.97%), typically used for websites in the clothing, fashion, and design sectors; the Polish national top-level domain, PL (1.75%); and the LOL domain (1.60%).

Most frequent top-level domains for phishing pages, 2025 (download)

Organizations targeted by phishing attacks

The rankings of organizations targeted by phishers are based on detections by the Anti-Phishing deterministic component on user computers. The component detects all pages with phishing content that the user has tried to open by following a link in an email message or on the web, as long as links to these pages are present in the Kaspersky database.

Phishing pages impersonating web services (27.42%) and global internet portals (15.89%) maintained their positions in the TOP 10, continuing to rank first and second, respectively. Online stores (11.27%), a traditional favorite among threat actors, returned to the third spot. In 2025, phishers showed increased interest in online gamers: websites mimicking gaming platforms jumped from ninth to fifth place (7.58%). These are followed by banks (6.06%), payment systems (5.93%), messengers (5.70%), and delivery services (5.06%). Phishing attacks also targeted social media (4.42%) and government services (1.77%) accounts.

Distribution of targeted organizations by category, 2025 (download)

Statistics: spam

Share of spam in email traffic

In 2025, the average share of spam in global email traffic was 44.99%, representing a decrease of 2.28 percentage points compared to the previous year. Notably, contrary to the trends of the past several years, the fourth quarter was the busiest one: an average of 49.26% of emails were categorized as spam, with peak activity occurring in November (52.87%) and December (51.80%). Throughout the rest of the year, the distribution of junk mail remained relatively stable without significant spikes, maintaining an average share of approximately 43.50%.

Share of spam in global email traffic, 2025 (download)

In the Russian web segment (Runet), we observed a more substantial decline: the average share of spam decreased by 5.3 percentage points to 43.27%. Deviating from the global trend, the fourth quarter was the quietest period in Russia, with a share of 41.28%. We recorded the lowest level of spam activity in December, when only 36.49% of emails were identified as junk. January and February were also relatively calm, with average values of 41.94% and 43.09%, respectively. Conversely, the Runet figures for March–October correlated with global figures: no major surges were observed, spam accounting for an average of 44.30% of total email traffic during these months.

Share of spam in Runet email traffic, 2025 (download)

Countries and territories where spam originated

The top three countries in the 2025 rankings for the volume of outgoing spam mirror the distribution of the previous year: Russia, China, and the United States. However, the share of spam originating from Russia decreased from 36.18% to 32.50%, while the shares of China (19.10%) and the U.S. (10.57%) each increased by approximately 2 percentage points. Germany rose to fourth place (3.46%), up from sixth last year, displacing Kazakhstan (2.89%). Hong Kong followed in sixth place (2.11%). The Netherlands and Japan shared the next spot with identical shares of 1.95%; however, we observed a year-over-year increase in outgoing spam from the Netherlands, whereas Japan saw a decline. The TOP 10 is rounded out by Brazil (1.94%) and Belarus (1.74%), the latter ranking for the first time.

TOP 20 countries and territories where spam originated in 2025 (download)

Malicious email attachments

In 2025, Kaspersky solutions blocked 144,722,674 malicious email attachments, an increase of nineteen million compared to the previous year. The beginning and end of the year were traditionally the most stable periods; however, we also observed a notable decline in activity during August and September. Peaks in email antivirus detections occurred in June, July, and November.

Email antivirus detections, 2025 (download)

The most prevalent malicious email attachment in 2025 was the Makoob Trojan family, which covertly harvests system information and user credentials. Makoob first entered the TOP 10 in 2023 in eighth place, rose to third in 2024, and secured the top spot in 2025 with a share of 4.88%. Following Makoob, as in the previous year, was the Badun Trojan family (4.13%), which typically disguises itself as electronic documents. The third spot is held by the Taskun family (3.68%), which creates malicious scheduled tasks, followed by Agensla stealers (3.16%), which were the most common malicious attachments in 2024. Next are Trojan.Win32.AutoItScript scripts (2.88%), appearing in the rankings for the first time. In sixth place is the Noon spyware for all Windows systems (2.63%), which also occupied the tenth spot with its variant specifically targeting 32-bit systems (1.10%). Rounding out the TOP 10 are Hoax.HTML.Phish (1.98%) phishing attachments, Guloader downloaders (1.90%) – a newcomer to the rankings – and Badur (1.56%) PDF documents containing suspicious links.

TOP 10 malware families distributed via email attachments, 2025 (download)

The distribution of specific malware samples traditionally mirrors the distribution of malware families almost exactly. The only differences are that a specific variant of the Agensla stealer ranked sixth instead of fourth (2.53%), and the Phish and Guloader samples swapped positions (1.58% and 1.78%, respectively). Rounding out the rankings in tenth place is the password stealer Trojan-PSW.MSIL.PureLogs.gen with a share of 1.02%.

TOP 10 malware samples distributed via email attachments, 2025 (download)

Countries and territories targeted by malicious mailings

The highest volume of malicious email attachments was blocked on devices belonging to users in China (13.74%). For the first time in two years, Russia dropped to second place with a share of 11.18%. Following closely behind are Mexico (8.18%) and Spain (7.70%), which swapped places compared to the previous year. Email antivirus triggers saw a slight increase in Türkiye (5.19%), which maintained its fifth-place position. Sixth and seventh places are held by Vietnam (4.14%) and Malaysia (3.70%); both countries climbed higher in the TOP 10 due to an increase in detection shares. These are followed by the UAE (3.12%), which held its position from the previous year. Italy (2.43%) and Colombia (2.07%) also entered the TOP 10 list of targets for malicious mailshots.

TOP 20 countries and territories targeted by malicious mailshots, 2025 (download)

Conclusion

2026 will undoubtedly be marked by novel methods of exploiting artificial intelligence capabilities. At the same time, messaging app credentials will remain a highly sought-after prize for threat actors. While new schemes are certain to emerge, they will likely supplement rather than replace time-tested tricks and tactics. This underscores the reality that, alongside the deployment of robust security software, users must remain vigilant and exercise extreme caution toward any online offers that raise even the slightest suspicion.

The intensified focus on government service credentials signals a rise in potential impact; unauthorized access to these services can lead to financial theft, data breaches, and full-scale identity theft. Furthermore, the increased abuse of legitimate tools and the rise of multi-stage attacks – which often begin with seemingly harmless files or links – demonstrate a concerted effort by fraudsters to lull users into a false sense of security while pursuing their malicious objectives.

Imagine que um usuário acessa um site fraudulento, decide fazer uma compra e insere as informações do cartão bancário, nome e endereço. Adivinha o que acontece a seguir? Se você acha que os invasores simplesmente pegam o dinheiro e desaparecem, pense novamente. Infelizmente, é muito mais complicado. Na realidade, as informações entram em um enorme pipeline do mercado paralelo, onde os dados das vítimas circulam por anos, mudando de mãos e sendo reutilizados em novos ataques.

Na Kaspersky, estudamos a jornada dos dados após um ataque de phishing: quem os obtém, como são classificados, revendidos e usados no mercado paralelo. Neste artigo, mapeamos a rota dos dados roubados e explicamos como se proteger caso já tenha encontrado phishing ou como evitá-lo no futuro. Você pode ler o relatório detalhado e completo com informações técnicas na Securelist.

Coleta de dados

Os sites de phishing são cuidadosamente disfarçados para parecerem legítimos; às vezes, o design visual, a interface do usuário e até mesmo o nome de domínio são quase indistinguíveis dos verdadeiros. Para roubar dados, os invasores normalmente utilizam formulários HTML que solicitam que os usuários insiram suas credenciais de login, dados do cartão de pagamento ou outras informações confidenciais.

Assim que o usuário clicar em Fazer login ou Pagar, as informações são enviadas instantaneamente para os cibercriminosos. Algumas campanhas mal-intencionadas não coletam dados diretamente por meio de um site de phishing, mas se aproveitam de serviços legítimos, como o Google Formulários, para ocultar o servidor de destino final.

Os dados roubados são normalmente transmitidos em uma das três formas seguintes ou usando uma combinação delas:

• E-mail. Esse método é menos comum hoje devido a possíveis atrasos ou bloqueios.
• Bots do Telegram. Os invasores recebem as informações instantaneamente. A maioria desses bots é descartável, o que os torna difíceis de rastrear.
• Painéis de administração. Os cibercriminosos podem usar um software especializado para coletar e classificar dados, visualizar estatísticas, bem como verificar automaticamente as informações roubadas.

Que tipo de dados os phishers procuram?

A variedade de dados buscados por cibercriminosos é bastante ampla.

• Dados pessoais: números de telefone, nomes completos, e-mail, registro e endereços residenciais. Essas informações podem ser usadas para criar ataques direcionados. As pessoas muitas vezes caem em golpes justamente porque os invasores têm uma grande quantidade de informações pessoais, sabem o nome da vítima, onde ela mora e quais serviços utiliza.
• Documentos: dados e digitalizações como documentos de identidade, carteiras de motorista, seguros e IDs fiscais, entre outros. Os criminosos usam essas informações para roubar a identidade, solicitar empréstimos e verificar a identidade ao fazer login em bancos ou portais eletrônicos do governo.
• Credenciais: logins, senhas e códigos 2FA únicos.
• Biometria: verificações faciais, impressões digitais e amostras de voz usadas para gerar deepfakes ou contornar a autenticação de dois fatores.
• Informações de pagamento: dados de cartões bancários e de carteiras de criptomoedas.
• E muito mais.

De acordo com nossa pesquisa, a grande maioria (88,5%) dos ataques de phishing realizados entre janeiro e setembro de 2025 teve como alvo credenciais de contas on-line, e 9,5% foram tentativas de obter dados pessoais dos usuários, como nomes, endereços e datas. Por fim, 2% dos ataques de phishing tiveram como foco o roubo de dados de cartões bancários.

O que acontece depois com os dados roubados?

Nem todos os dados roubados são usados diretamente pelos invasores para transferir dinheiro para suas próprias contas. Na prática, os dados quase nunca são usados imediatamente. Em geral, acabam no mercado paralelo, onde chegam a analistas e corretores de dados. Uma jornada típica costuma seguir mais ou menos este caminho.

1.       Venda de dados em massa

Os conjuntos de dados brutos são agrupados em arquivos enormes e oferecidos em massa em fóruns da dark Web. Esses dumps geralmente contêm informações irrelevantes ou desatualizadas, por isso são relativamente baratos, custando a partir de US$ 50.

2.       Classificação e verificação de dados

Esses arquivos são comprados por hackers que atuam como analistas. Eles categorizam os conjuntos de dados e verificam sua validade, checando se as credenciais de login funcionam para os serviços especificados, se são reutilizadas em outros sites e se coincidem com dados de vazamentos anteriores. Para ataques direcionados, os cibercriminosos compilam um dossiê digital. Ele armazena informações coletadas de ataques recentes e mais antigos, essencialmente uma planilha de dados pronta para ser usada em invasões.

3.       Revenda de dados verificados

Os conjuntos de dados classificados são oferecidos para venda novamente, agora a um preço mais alto, e não apenas na dark Web, mas também no Telegram, uma plataforma mais conhecida.

Segundo o Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence, os preços das contas variam conforme o tempo de uso, o uso de autenticação de dois fatores (2FA), os cartões bancários vinculados e a base de usuários do serviço. Não é surpresa que o produto mais caro e procurado neste mercado seja o acesso a contas bancárias e carteiras de criptomoedas.

Categoria	Preço, US$	Preço médio, US$
Plataformas de criptomoedas	60 a 400	105
Bancos	70 a 2.000	350
Portais eletrônicos do governo	15 a 2.000	82,5
Redes sociais	0,4 a 279	3
Aplicativos de mensagens	0,065 a 150	2,5
Lojas on-line	10 a 50	20
Jogos e plataformas de jogos	1 a 50	6
Portais globais da Internet	0,2 a 2	0,9
Documentos pessoais	0,5 a 125	15

4.       Ataques repetidos

Depois que um cibercriminoso compra o dossiê digital de uma vítima, ele pode planejar seu próximo ataque. Ele pode usar a inteligência de código aberto para descobrir onde a pessoa trabalha e, em seguida, criar um e-mail convincente se passando pelo chefe dela. Como alternativa, ele pode invadir um perfil de rede social, extrair fotos comprometedoras e exigir um resgate pela devolução. No entanto, tenha certeza de que quase todos os e-mails de ameaça ou extorsão são apenas uma tática de intimidação dos golpistas.

Os cibercriminosos também usam contas comprometidas para enviar mais e-mails de phishing e links mal-intencionados aos contatos da vítima. Portanto, se você receber uma mensagem pedindo para votar na sobrinha em um concurso, emprestar dinheiro ou clicar em um link suspeito, terá todos os motivos para ficar em alerta.

O que fazer se seus dados forem roubados

1. Primeiro, tente se lembrar das informações que você inseriu no site de phishing. Se você forneceu dados do cartão de pagamento, entre em contato com seu banco imediatamente e solicite o bloqueio dos cartões. Se você inseriu um nome de usuário e senha que utiliza em outras contas, altere essas senhas imediatamente. Um gerenciador de senhas pode ajudar a criar e armazenar senhas fortes e exclusivas.
2. Ative a autenticação de dois fatores (2FA) sempre que possível. Para obter mais informações sobre o que é 2FA e como usá-la, leia nosso guia. Ao escolher um método 2FA, é melhor evitar o SMS, pois códigos de uso único enviados por mensagem de texto podem ser interceptados. O ideal é usar um aplicativo autenticador, como o Kaspersky Password Manager, para gerar códigos únicos.
3. Verifique as sessões ativas (a lista de dispositivos conectados) nas suas contas importantes. Caso veja um dispositivo ou endereço IP que não reconheça, encerre a sessão imediatamente. Em seguida, altere sua senha e configure a autenticação de dois fatores.

Como se proteger contra phishing

• Não clique em links de e-mails ou mensagens sem antes verificá-los com uma solução de segurança.
• Se você receber um e-mail suspeito, sempre verifique o endereço do remetente para ver se já teve algum contato com essa pessoa antes. Se alguém alegar representar uma autoridade governamental ou empresa, certifique-se de comparar o domínio do qual o e-mail foi enviado com o domínio do site oficial da organização. Nenhuma correspondência oficial deve vir de um serviço de e-mail gratuito.
• Use um aplicativo autenticador para fazer a autenticação de dois fatores.
• Crie senhas resistentes a hackers. Nossa pesquisa revela que os hackers conseguem descobrir quase 60% de todas as senhas no mundo em menos de uma hora. Como alternativa, considere mudar para chaves de acesso, pois oferecem uma proteção de conta muito mais robusta. No entanto, lembre-se de que elas também têm suas desvantagens.
• Lembre-se: usar a mesma senha em vários serviços é um erro crítico. Isso é exatamente o que é explorado pelos agentes mal-intencionados. Mesmo que você nunca tenha caído em um golpe de phishing, suas senhas e dados ainda podem ser expostas em vazamentos de dados, já que os cibercriminosos visam não apenas indivíduos, mas empresas inteiras. Este ano, o Identity Theft Resource Center já registrou mais de dois mil vazamentos de dados. Para minimizar os riscos, crie uma senha única e forte para cada conta. Você não precisa nem consegue memorizar todas elas. É melhor usar um gerenciador de senhas que gera e armazena senhas complexas com segurança, sincroniza-as em todos os seus dispositivos, preenche-as automaticamente em sites e aplicativos e alerta você se alguma das suas credenciais aparecer em um vazamento de dados conhecido.

Saiba mais sobre phishing e golpes:

• Como phishers e golpistas usam IA
• O que fazer ao receber um e-mail de phishing
• Extorsão por e-mail: como os golpistas recorrem à chantagem
• Golpes no Telegram com bots, brindes e criptomoedas
• Entre outros

Introduction

A typical phishing attack involves a user clicking a fraudulent link and entering their credentials on a scam website. However, the attack is far from over at that point. The moment the confidential information falls into the hands of cybercriminals, it immediately transforms into a commodity and enters the shadow market conveyor belt.

In this article, we trace the path of the stolen data, starting from its collection through various tools – such as Telegram bots and advanced administration panels – to the sale of that data and its subsequent reuse in new attacks. We examine how a once leaked username and password become part of a massive digital dossier and why cybercriminals can leverage even old leaks for targeted attacks, sometimes years after the initial data breach.

Data harvesting mechanisms in phishing attacks

Before we trace the subsequent fate of the stolen data, we need to understand exactly how it leaves the phishing page and reaches the cybercriminals.

By analyzing real-world phishing pages, we have identified the most common methods for data transmission:

• Send to an email address.
• Send to a Telegram bot.
• Upload to an administration panel.

It also bears mentioning that attackers may use legitimate services for data harvesting to make their server harder to detect. Examples include online form services like Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, etc. Stolen data repositories can also be set up on GitHub, Discord servers, and other websites. For the purposes of this analysis, however, we will focus on the primary methods of data harvesting.

Email

Data entered into an HTML form on a phishing page is sent to the cybercriminal’s server via a PHP script, which then forwards it to an email address controlled by the attacker. However, this method is becoming less common due to several limitations of email services, such as delivery delays, the risk of the hosting provider blocking the sending server, and the inconvenience of processing large volumes of data.

As an example, let’s look at a phishing kit targeting DHL users.

The index.php file contains the phishing form designed to harvest user data – in this case, an email address and a password.

The data that the victim enters into this form is then sent via a script in the next.php file to the email address specified within the mail.php file.

Telegram bots

Unlike the previous method, the script used to send stolen data specifies a Telegram API URL with a bot token and the corresponding Chat ID, rather than an email address. In some cases, the link is hard-coded directly into the phishing HTML form. Attackers create a detailed message template that is sent to the bot after a successful attack. Here is what this looks like in the code:

Compared to sending data via email, using Telegram bots provides phishers with enhanced functionality, which is why they are increasingly adopting this method. Data arrives in the bot in real time, with instant notification to the operator. Attackers often use disposable bots, which are harder to track and block. Furthermore, their performance does not depend on the quality of phishing page hosting.

Automated administration panels

More sophisticated cybercriminals use specialized software, including commercial frameworks like BulletProofLink and Caffeine, often as a Platform as a Service (PaaS). These frameworks provide a web interface (dashboard) for managing phishing campaigns.

Data harvested from all phishing pages controlled by the attacker is fed into a unified database that can be viewed and managed through their account.

These admin panels are used for analyzing and processing victim data. The features of a specific panel depend on the available customization options, but most dashboards typically have the following capabilities:

• Sorting of real-time statistics: the ability to view the number of successful attacks by time and country, along with data filtering options
• Automatic verification: some systems can automatically check the validity of the stolen data like credit cards and login credentials
• Data export: the ability to download the data in various formats for future use or sale

Admin panels are a vital tool for organized cybercriminals.

One campaign often employs several of these data harvesting methods simultaneously.

The data cybercriminals want

The data harvested during a phishing attack varies in value and purpose. In the hands of cybercriminals, it becomes a method of profit and a tool for complex, multi-stage attacks.

Stolen data can be divided into the following categories, based on its intended purpose:

• Immediate monetization: the direct sale of large volumes of raw data or the immediate withdrawal of funds from a victim’s bank account or online wallet.
  • Banking details: card number, expiration date, cardholder name, and CVV/CVC.
  • Access to online banking accounts and digital wallets: logins, passwords, and one-time 2FA codes.
  • Accounts with linked banking details: logins and passwords for accounts that contain bank card details, such as online stores, subscription services, or payment systems like Apple Pay or Google Pay.
• Subsequent attacks for further monetization: using the stolen data to conduct new attacks and generate further profit.
  • Credentials for various online accounts: logins and passwords. Importantly, email addresses or phone numbers, which are often used as logins, can hold value for attackers even without the accompanying passwords.
  • Phone numbers, used for phone scams, including attempts to obtain 2FA codes, and for phishing via messaging apps.
  • Personal data: full name, date of birth, and address, abused in social engineering attacks
• Targeted attacks, blackmail, identity theft, and deepfakes.
  • Biometric data: voice and facial projections.
  • Scans and numbers of personal documents: passports, driver’s licenses, social security cards, and taxpayer IDs.
  • Selfies with documents, used for online loan applications and identity verification.
  • Corporate accounts, used for targeted attacks on businesses.

We analyzed phishing and scam attacks conducted from January through September 2025 to determine which data was most frequently targeted by cybercriminals. We found that 88.5% of attacks aimed to steal credentials for various online accounts, 9.5% targeted personal data (name, address, and date of birth), and 2% focused on stealing bank card details.

Distribution of attacks by target data type, January–September 2025 (download)

Selling data on dark web markets

Except for real-time attacks or those aimed at immediate monetization, stolen data is typically not used instantly. Let’s take a closer look at the route it takes.

1. Sale of data dumps
   Data is consolidated and put up for sale on dark web markets in the form of dumps: archives that contain millions of records obtained from various phishing attacks and data breaches. A dump can be offered for as little as $50. The primary buyers are often not active scammers but rather dark market analysts, the next link in the supply chain.
2. Sorting and verification
   Dark market analysts filter the data by type (email accounts, phone numbers, banking details, etc.) and then run automated scripts to verify it. This checks validity and reuse potential, for example, whether a Facebook login and password can be used to sign in to Steam or Gmail. Data stolen from one service several years ago can still be relevant for another service today because people tend to use identical passwords across multiple websites. Verified accounts with an active login and password command a higher price at the point of sale.
   Analysts also focus on combining user data from different attacks. Thus, an old password from a compromised social media site, a login and password from a phishing form mimicking an e-government portal, and a phone number left on a scam site can all be compiled into a single digital dossier on a specific user.
3. Selling on specialized markets
   Stolen data is typically sold on dark web forums and via Telegram. The instant messaging app is often used as a storefront to display prices, buyer reviews, and other details.
   

   Offers of social media data, as displayed in Telegram

   The prices of accounts can vary significantly and depend on many factors, such as account age, balance, linked payment methods (bank cards, online wallets), 2FA authentication, and service popularity. Thus, an online store account may be more expensive if it is linked to an email, has 2FA enabled, and has a long history, with a large number of completed orders. For gaming accounts, such as Steam, expensive game purchases are a factor. Online banking data sells at a premium if the victim has a high account balance and the bank itself has a good reputation.

   The table below shows prices for various types of accounts found on dark web forums as of 2025*.

   Category	Price	Average price
   Crypto platforms	$60–$400	$105
   Banks	$70–$2000	$350
   E-government portals	$15–$2000	$82.5
   Social media	$0.4–$279	$3
   Messaging apps	$0.065–$150	$2.5
   Online stores	$10–$50	$20
   Games and gaming platforms	$1–$50	$6
   Global internet portals	$0.2–$2	$0.9
   Personal documents	$0.5–$125	$15

   *Data provided by Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence

4. High-value target selection and targeted attacks
   Cybercriminals take particular interest in valuable targets. These are users who have access to important information: senior executives, accountants, or IT systems administrators.

   Let’s break down a possible scenario for a targeted whaling attack. A breach at Company A exposes data associated with a user who was once employed there but now holds an executive position at Company B. The attackers analyze open-source intelligence (OSINT) to determine the user’s current employer (Company B). Next, they craft a sophisticated phishing email to the target, purportedly from the CEO of Company B. To build trust, the email references some facts from the target’s old job – though other scenarios exist too. By disarming the user’s vigilance, cybercriminals gain the ability to compromise Company B for a further attack.

   Importantly, these targeted attacks are not limited to the corporate sector. Attackers may also be drawn to an individual with a large bank account balance or someone who possesses important personal documents, such as those required for a microloan application.

Takeaways

The journey of stolen data is like a well-oiled conveyor belt, where every piece of information becomes a commodity with a specific price tag. Today, phishing attacks leverage diverse systems for harvesting and analyzing confidential information. Data flows instantly into Telegram bots and attackers’ administration panels, where it is then sorted, verified, and monetized.

It is crucial to understand that data, once lost, does not simply vanish. It is accumulated, consolidated, and can be used against the victim months or even years later, transforming into a tool for targeted attacks, blackmail, or identity theft. In the modern cyber-environment, caution, the use of unique passwords, multi-factor authentication, and regular monitoring of your digital footprint are no longer just recommendations – they are a necessity.

What to do if you become a victim of phishing

1. If a bank card you hold has been compromised, call your bank as soon as possible and have the card blocked.
2. If your credentials have been stolen, immediately change the password for the compromised account and any online services where you may have used the same or a similar password. Set a unique password for every account.
3. Enable multi-factor authentication in all accounts that support this.
4. Check the sign-in history for your accounts and terminate any suspicious sessions.
5. If your messaging service or social media account has been compromised, alert your family and friends about potential fraudulent messages sent in your name.
6. Use specialized services to check if your data has been found in known data breaches.
7. Treat any unexpected emails, calls, or offers with extreme vigilance – they may appear credible because attackers are using your compromised data.