Phishing affects all companies and France is not spared. According to the top 20 for 2023, 6 French companies appear in the ranking of structures whose identity has been the most usurped to carry out attacks.
- 6 French companies appear in the top 20 of companies whose identities have been most stolen for phishing campaigns
- Phishing links are mainly spread on social networks
- Phishing is on the rise in 2023
Phishing, or phishing in the language of Molière, is the favorite technique of pirates. Very quick to set up by spreading traps on a large scale, this technique usurps the identity of real structures to steal your personal information. As cybersecurity company Vade reveals, French companies are in a good place.
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French banks and operators usurped by pirates
Vade is categorical: phishing has taken on an unprecedented scale. Last year, 1.76 billion phishing links were sent. The situation is not likely to improve in 2024 when we know that CAF was affected by a hack but worse still, the mutual insurance companies of half of French people were affected by a theft of private data. These elements will allow hackers to refine phishing campaigns.
France is not spared since there are 6 companies in the top 20 structures whose identities have been the most impersonated in terms of malicious links in 2023.
- 3rd: Agricultural credit
- 4th: Orange
- 12th: The postal bank
- 15th: SFR
- 17th: OVH
- 18th: Société Générale
Hackers therefore hit many customers of French companies and, unsurprisingly, we find banks and operators. The goal is obviously to attack victims’ financial resources by redirecting them to fake sites where they will enter their identifiers, then used by the scammers.
It is especially on social networks that phishing links are widely distributed. Facebook is the number 1 platform where these trapped links are found with an increase of 74%. In 2024, there were 44,548 phishing links there. There are also other Meta companies like Instagram and WhatsApp, respectively 10th and 13th in this inglorious ranking.
Faced with phishing, there are several very simple rules to follow :
- Never click on links from social networks which lead, for example, to your bank. Better to go through a search engine like Google to access it yourself.
- Don’t click either on links in emails, especially when you are promised money or a gift. Double check the URL which, in general, is rather suspicious. Hackers also use urgency by claiming a package to be collected, a quick update to be made under penalty of losing access to your account or an alert.
- The same goes for the sender’s address. If you receive an email from your bank or operator, think about watching it. You will know very quickly if it is suspicious.
To sum up : caution is advised when receiving any link. Check the address, both of the site and the sender.
Source: Vade