News alert: SpyCloud study — Phishing attacks surge 400% as corporate identities become top target

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 4, 2025, CyberNewswire — SpyCloud, the leader in identity threat protection, today released new data showing a sharp rise in phishing attacks that disproportionately target corporate users.

The company tracked a 400% year-over-year increase in successfully phished identities, with nearly 40% of the 28+ million recaptured phished records containing a business email address – compared to just 11.5% in recaptured malware data. The result is a warning to enterprises that their workforce is three times more likely to be targeted with phishing attacks than infostealer malware.

The findings reinforce a growing shift in cybercriminals’ strategy: phishing is now the preferred gateway into enterprise environments, and SpyCloud sees this trend continuing in 2026. Threat actors are using this access as a launchpad for follow-on attacks, with SpyCloud reporting in its 2025 Identity Threat Report that phishing is now the leading entry point for ransomware, accounting for 35% of all ransomware infections.

“Phishing is now one of the most scalable tools cybercriminals use to breach enterprise environments,” said Trevor Hilligoss, SpyCloud’s Head of Security Research. “Cybercrime enablement services, like phishing-as-a-service kits that automate convincing lures and adversary-in-the-middle tactics that capture MFA tokens and session cookies, put advanced tactics into the hands of low-skilled actors, making it easier than ever to compromise users at scale. SpyCloud’s visibility into these campaigns gives organizations a critical edge, helping them detect who’s been targeted and what data has been exposed, and remediate those credentials before they can be weaponized.”

SpyCloud is the only provider recapturing and automatically remediating successfully phished identity data and targeting lists at scale before follow-on attacks like ransomware, fraud, and account takeover can occur.

“Many organizations rely on traditional defenses like email filtering, endpoint protection, and employee education to stop phishing and malware attempts, but those tools only go so far,” said Damon Fleury, SpyCloud’s Chief Product Officer. “Attackers are still getting through – and when they do, it’s the exposed identity data that enables further harm. Security teams need to be vigilant about what’s already been compromised and circulating in the criminal underground. Prevention is important, but without real-time visibility and post-compromise remediation, it’s not enough.”

While phishing has become a dominant entry point, malware remains a critical threat vector. In the age of remote work and bring-your-own-device policies, personal exposures are increasingly used to compromise enterprise environments. A recent example is the 2025 Nikkei breach, where malware on a personal device led to the compromise of sensitive corporate data. Despite only 11.5% of recaptured malware infections exfiltrating business email addresses directly, SpyCloud data shows that nearly 1 in 2 corporate users have been the victim of an infostealer malware infection in their digital history, whether that be on a managed or unmanaged device – a strong indicator that threat actors are moving laterally from personal to corporate accounts.

“Protecting the enterprise means looking beyond corporate accounts,” Fleury added. “Due to the continuous reuse of passwords and shared identity data across work and personal accounts like mobile numbers, the line between a user’s personal digital history and their professional access effectively no longer exists. That’s why it’s essential to monitor and remediate exposures across the full spectrum of an individual’s digital identity – personal and professional.”

SpyCloud is the leader in holistic identity protection, detecting and protecting organizations from the phishing, malware, and breach exposures of employees, contractors, and vendors across personal and professional identities. Users can click here to learn more.

About SpyCloud: SpyCloud transforms recaptured darknet data to disrupt cybercrime. Its automated identity threat protection solutions leverage advanced analytics and AI to proactively prevent ransomware and account takeover, detect insider threats, safeguard employee and consumer identities, and accelerate cybercrime investigations. SpyCloud’s data from breaches, malware-infected devices, and successful phishes also powers many popular dark web monitoring and identity theft protection offerings. Customers include seven of the Fortune 10, along with hundreds of global enterprises, mid-sized companies, and government agencies worldwide. Headquartered in Austin, TX, SpyCloud is home to more than 200 cybersecurity experts whose mission is to protect businesses and consumers from the stolen identity data criminals are using to target them now. To learn more and see insights on their company’s exposed data, users can visit spycloud.com.

Media contact: Emily Brown, REQ on behalf of SpyCloud, ebrown@req.co

Editor’s note: This press release was provided by CyberNewswire as part of its press release syndication service. The views and claims expressed belong to the issuing organization.

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