APWG Q2 Report: Phishing and Scam Attack Numbers Rise While Inflicted Damages from BEC Attacks Explode

Greater than 1600 manufacturers are focused, solely by QR code assaults in Q2

Cambridge, Massachusetts / Access to Newswire / 4 September 2025 / Cambridge, mass. The APWGs Q2 2025 Phishing Exercise Tendencies report It seems that an rising variety of cyber crime assaults, with some kinds of phishing that rapidly trigger rising prices for shoppers and corporations they’ve the sufferer within the second quarter of this yr.

APWG will meet to treat these developments and the rise of AI as a conspirator of cyber crime Ecrime symposium In November: https://apwg.org/events/ecime2025

The variety of phishing assaults has risen steadily previously yr. Within the second quarter of 2025, APWG noticed 1,130,393 phishing assaults, a rise of 13 % in comparison with 1,003,924 assaults in Q1 2025. That is the most important quarter whole since 1.28 million of those campaigns had been noticed in Q2 2023.

Assaults additionally price firms more cash within the final quarter.

“Enterprise e-mail compromise” or BEC assaults try to mislead staff, usually essential operational employees and managers, to ship the cash or passwords of their firm to a felony. When criminals requested that firms are sending cash to them via wire switch, the typical requested in Q2 2025 was $ 83,099, a rise of 97 % in comparison with Q1 2025. The overall variety of noticed variety of switch assaults additionally elevated by 27 % in comparison with Q1 2025.

Phishers additionally use the companies of reputable firms to carry out phishing.

Matthew Harris, senior product supervisor, fraud at Crane Authentication/OPSEC Safety, reported: “We see a rise within the quantity of phishing on free internet hosting platforms, and in domains the place the community and internet hosting infrastructure behind the safety companies of third events is.”

APWG member Fortra documented that Inexperienced Dot was once more the popular financial institution of the Payroll drainage, with one within the 4 Payroll drainage makes an attempt geared toward accounts at one of many manufacturers of Inexperienced Dot. Area registrar NameAPEAP was often utilized by BEC -Lighers, in nearly 1 / 4 of all BEC assaults. Google’s Gmail was used for 70 % Free Webmail accounts that arrange scammers for BEC scams, Fortra thought.

Whereas Phishers direct massive numbers of assaults on sure manufacturers (such because the American postal service), many manufacturers of firms are additionally being attacked. APWG worker Mimecast found that 1,642 manufacturers had been the goal of criminals utilizing malignant QR codes, which lead the victims to phishing websites and malware.

Report: https://docs.apwg.org/rports/apwg_trends_report_q2_2025.pdf

About APWG

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) Is the worldwide trade, regulation enforcement and authorities coalition geared toward uniting the worldwide response to digital crime. Membership is open to certified monetary establishments, on-line retailers, ISPs and telco’s, the regulation enforcement neighborhood, options suppliers, multilateral treaty organizations, analysis facilities, business associations and authorities companies. See: APWGs APWG.org And stophinkconnect.org Web sites.

Contact APWG on [email protected]+1.617.669.1123). For firm -specific content material on this launch, contact: Stefanie Wooden of Crane Authentication/OPSEC Safety ([email protected]); Jessica Ryan van Fortra (Agari and Phishlabs) ([email protected]); Tim Hamilton from Mimecast ([email protected]).

Contact particulars

Peter Cassidy
Secretary -Basic
[email protected]
617-669-1123

SOURCE: Anti-Phishing Working Group