Financial institutions and digital transaction brands continue as favorite targets of phishing campaigns according to a third-quarter phishing trend report from San Francisco-based digital threat management solutions provide RiskIQ.

In a follow-up to its Q3 mobile threat landscape report The RiskIQ research team observed 931,665 unique blacklisted phishing URLs in the third quarter. Of these, 27,868 were unique domains, down from the 39,320 in Q2. Overall detections decreased slightly in Q3 with the Bay Area firm observing a total of 279 brands targeted by phishing campaigns, down from the 316 in Q2. They owe that to the cyclical nature of phishing campaigns. While the method and frequency of phishing campaigns vary, the threat remains consistent. 

Financial services and digital transaction brands continue to be favorite targets. The breakdown of the Q3 top-10 brands is:

• 40% financial institutions
• 20% large tech companies
• 20% digital transaction providers
• 10% cloud storage providers
• 10% social media platforms

RiskIQ blogger Andrew Geiger maintained, phishing actors are always innovating and creating new methods to lure victims into gaining access to their financial information, personally identifiable information, and user accounts. any angle they can play to get their victims to enter their information, they'll use.