Phishing in messenger apps – what's new?

Phishing in messenger apps – what's new?

Anonymised data, voluntarily provided by Kaspersky Internet Security for Android users, has shown which messenger apps are the most popular among phishing scammers. The biggest share of detected malicious links between December 2020 and May 2021 were sent via WhatsApp (89.6%), followed by Telegram (5.6%). Viber is in third place with a share of 4.7% and Hangouts has less than one percent. Countries experiencing the highest number of phishing attacks were Russia (46%), Brazil (15%) and India (7%). Globally, 480 detections were recorded per day.



According to research, messenger apps outstripped social networks by 20% in 2020, in terms of popularity among users, and became the most popular tool for communication. Survey results also show that in 2020, the global audience for messengers amounted to 2.7 billion people, and by 2023 it is expected to grow to 3.1 billion. That is almost 40% of the world’s population.


Kaspersky Internet Security for Android has added a new feature, Safe Messaging, which prevents users from opening malicious links that they receive in messenger apps (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Hangouts) and through SMS. As a result, Kaspersky analysed anonymised clicks on phishing links across messenger apps and found that between December 2020 and May 2021, 91,242 detections were recorded globally.


According to the statistics, Kaspersky Internet Security for Android detected the biggest number of malicious links in WhatsApp, partly due to the fact that it is the most popular messenger globally. The biggest share of such messages was detected in Russia (42%), Brazil (17%) and India (7%).


Among Kaspersky Internet Security for Android users, Telegram had the least amount of detections, but was similar in geography to WhatsApp. The biggest number of malicious links were detected in Russia (56%), India (6%) and Turkey (4%). High figures in Russia are probably due to the increased level of popularity of this messenger in the country.


Based on statistics, Viber an ..

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