Gone phishing -- how the threat has developed

Phishing attacks have become commonplace to the point where we almost take them for granted. From the cybercriminal's point of view they are popular because they work.

But what are the origins of phishing and how has it developed? Email security specialist Anavan has put together an infographic looking at the history and future of the threat.

It has its roots in spam emails which first appeared in the late 1980s. Phishing proper first appeared in 1995 when the Warez community started sending emails posing as AoL administators in order to steal users' login credentials.

Since 2006 email has become increasingly web based rather than using local clients and phishing has evolved to the point where in 2019 it's reckoned around 4.7 billion attack emails are sent each day. You can see more detail about the rise of the threat in the full graphic below.

Graphic courtesy of Avanan

Photo credit: wk1003mike / Shutterstock