Visualizing the Companies Online Scammers Impersonate the Most

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May 30, 2024 Article/Editing:

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The Companies Online Scammers Impersonate the Most

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Globally, online scams cost consumers and businesses billions annually through the use of increasingly sophisticated tactics that steal users’ data.

Often, this involves the use of “phishing”, which is when fraudsters send messages or emails impersonating a legitimate business requesting sensitive information. In fact, this type of attack is one of the most common types of cybercrimes, owing to its high efficacy.

This graphic shows the most commonly impersonated brands by online scammers, based on data from Proofpoint.

Tech Companies Stand as Prime Targets

As the table below shows, the most commonly targeted companies are tech companies, making up six of the top seven impersonated brands by fraudsters in 2023:

CompanyNumber of Messages Impersonating a Company Microsoft68.0M Adobe9.4M DHL8.8M Google6.1M AOL4.4M DocuSign3.5M Amazon3.1M

Ranking as the top company overall, 68 million messages impersonated Microsoft, outpacing second-highest company, Adobe by a wide margin.

Often, these fraudulent emails feature subject lines such as “Outlook Info Replacement” or “Message Failure Delivery Notice”, luring recipients to click on embedded links. These links then take users to a counterfeit website mimicking the Outlook login page, prompting them to input their login details. Ultimately, disclosing these details presents a security risk to individuals and organizations.

Going further, Office 365 was targeted the most across all Microsoft products, being mimicked by 20 million email threats.

This highlights how fraudsters target trusted brands where they can apply tactics of “credential harvesting”. In this way, scammers can target a Microsoft 365 account, for instance, which will give them access to an email account and other personal data.

Ranking in third was DHL, with 8.8 million impersonated messages. By targeting the courier company, fraudsters prey on recipients who may be anticipating details on package deliveries. In many cases, online scammers trick people into clicking on a link that mimics the official website, aiming to steal customers’ login information or

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Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Dell Technologies, MongoDB, Zscaler, Gap and more

Best Visualizations of May on the Voronoi App

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May 30, 2024

At the end of 2023, we publicly launched Voronoi, our free new data discovery app!

The initial response from both users and creators has been incredible. We now have millions of in-app views, and there are already more than 1,000 interesting visualizations to discover, many of which will never be published on Visual Capitalist.

For that reason, we’ve chosen to highlight some of the most popular visualizations and creators from May in this roundup. To see them and many others, make sure to download the app!

Download Voronoi Now

Let’s take a look at a popular creator worth highlighting, as well as the most viewed, most discussed, and most liked posts of the month.

POPULAR CREATOR USAFacts

Visual Capitalist isn’t the only creator on the Voronoi app.

Instead, it features incredible data-driven charts and stories from many of the world’s best data sources, like USAFacts.

USAFacts, which was founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, is a non-profit that aims to collate public sources of U.S. data in one place in a non-partisan way. And on Voronoi, you can see visualizations and the data behind them on an exciting range of topics:

How the U.S. government spends tax dollars Graphing U.S. aid and assistance going to Ukraine and Israel How many encounters happen at U.S. borders each year The cost of major natural disasters in the U.S. by year

Make sure to follow USAFacts on Voronoi today to see many charts, maps, and visualizations on a wide range of U.S.-related topics.

View all visuals from USAFacts on Voronoi today.

MOST VIEWED Ranked: The 20 Countries With the Most Debt to China

Which countries are racking up the most external debt to China?

This visualization from Visual Capitalist was our most viewed of the month, using the latest available data from the World Bank.

Much of this debt was taken on to fund infrastructure projects as part of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, and some countries are running into difficulties repaying these large sums of money.

It should also be noted that this visual focuses in on external debt (i.e. loans made directly to countries) and does not cover publicly-traded securities like U.S. Treasurys.

Get the data behind this visual on Voronoi today.

Bank of America CEO says U.S. consumers and businesses have turned cautious on spending

Whether it’s households or small- to medium-sized businesses, Bank of America clients are slowing down the rate of purchases made for everything from hard goods to software, the bank’s CEO Brian Moynihan said. Consumer spending via card payments, checks and ATM withdrawals has grown about 3.5% this year to roughly $4 trillion, Moynihan said. That’s a sharp slowdown from the nearly 10% growth rate seen in May 2023, he said. Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Thomas Moynihan speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2023.  Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

U.S. consumers and businesses alike have turned cautious about spending this year because of elevated inflation and interest rates, according to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.

Whether it’s households or small- to medium-sized businesses, Bank of America clients are slowing down the rate of purchases made for everything from hard goods to software, Moynihan said Thursday at a financial conference held in New York.

Consumer spending via card payments, checks and ATM withdrawals has grown about 3.5% this year to roughly $4 trillion, Moynihan said. That’s a sharp slowdown from the nearly 10% growth rate seen in May 2023, he said.

“Both of our customer bases that have a lot to do with how the American economy runs are saying, ‘You know what? I’m being careful, slowing things down,'” Moynihan said, referring to consumers and businesses.

The slowdown began last summer and is consistent with the “very low growth” environment of the period from 2016 through 2018, he said.

Nearly a year after the last Federal Reserve rate increase, consumers and businesses are wrestling with inflation and borrowing costs that remain higher than they are accustomed to. The Fed began efforts to tame inflation by hiking its benchmark rate starting in March 2022, hoping it could slow the economy without tipping it into recession.

Many economists believe the Fed is on track to pull off that feat, which has helped the stock market reach new highs this year. But consumers are still grappling with higher prices for goods and services, and that has impacted U.S. companies from McDonald’s to discount retailers as Americans adjust their behavior.

Food shoppers are hitting up more store locations in search

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Fed’s favorite inflation gauge is expected to show very slow progress on Friday

The Commerce Department’s measure of personal consumption expenditures prices will be released Friday morning and is expected to show inflation in April running at a 2.7% annual rate, according to Dow Jones. Fed policymakers prefer the PCE measure as it accounts for shifts in consumer behavior, such as when shoppers will substitute less-expensive items for pricier ones. People shop at a supermarket in Montebello, California, on May 15, 2024.  Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Inflation is taking baby steps towards coming back to where policymakers want it, with a report due Friday expected to show more of that creeping progress.

The Commerce Department’s measure of personal consumption expenditures prices is expected to show inflation in April running at a 2.7% annual rate, according to the Dow Jones estimates both for overall inflation and the “core” that excludes food and energy costs.

If that forecast holds, it will represent a slight decline on the core measure and little change on the overall rate, though economists will be looking at both the annual and monthly measures. Core inflation is expected to have slowed to 0.2%, which would represent at least some further progress toward easing price pressure on weary consumers.

Overall, the report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, likely will point to another incremental move back to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

“We do not expect any major upward or downward surprises in Friday’s PCE as most of the recent economic data is indicative of an economy that has settled into a nice long-term simmer of not too hot and not too cold,” said Carol Schleif, chief investment officer at BMO Family Office. “That said, getting to the Fed’s 2% target is apt to be a bumpy landing.”

Getting a handle on inflation is proving tricky these days.

The Fed parses the data in many ways, most recently introducing what has been known as the “super-core” level that looks at services costs excluding food, energy and housing as a way to measure longer-term trends.

However, policymakers’ expectations that housing inflation will cool this year have been largely thwarted, throwing another wrinkle into the debate.

Moreover, the Fed’s preference on PCE is a bit arcane, as the public focuses more on the Labor Department’s consumer price index, which has shown much higher trends. CPI inflation ran

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Fed’s Williams says inflation is too high but will start coming down soon

John Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during the Market Forum: FX in Focus event in New York, on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

NEW YORK — New York Federal Reserve President John Williams on Thursday said inflation is still too high, but he is confident it will start decelerating later this year.

With markets on edge over the direction of monetary policy, Williams offered no clear indication of his position on possible interest rate cuts. Instead, he reiterated recent positions from the central bank that it has seen a “lack of further progress” toward its goals as inflation readings have been mostly higher than expected this year.

“The honest answer is, I just don’t know,” Williams said during a Q-and-A session with CNBC’s Sara Eisen before the Economic Club of New York. “I do think that monetary policy is restrictive and is bringing the economy a better balance. So I think at some point, interest rates within the US will, based on data analysis, eventually need to come down. But the timing will be driven by how well you achieve your goals.”

Williams called the policy “well-positioned” and “restrictive” and said it is helping the Fed achieve its goals. Regarding potential rate hikes, he said, “I don’t see that as the likely case.”

Earlier this year, markets had expected aggressive rate cuts from the Fed this year. But higher than expected inflation readings have altered that landscape dramatically, and current pricing is pointing to just one decrease, probably in November.

“With the economy coming into better balance over time and the disinflation taking place in other economies reducing global inflationary pressures, I expect inflation to resume moderating in the second half of this year,” Williams said. “But let me be clear: Inflation is still above our 2% longer-run target, and I am very focused on ensuring we achieve both of our dual mandate goals.”

For nearly a year, the Fed has been in a holding pattern, keeping its benchmark borrowing rate in a range between 5.25%-5.5%, the highest in more than 23 years.

The Fed is seeking to keep the labor market strong and bring inflation back to its 2% target. Most inflation indicators are near 3% now; a key reading from the Commerce Department is due Friday.

Inflation as

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The lesson of Loki? Trade less

The pages of the Financial Times are not usually a place for legends about ancient gods, but perhaps I can be indulged in sharing one with a lesson to teach us all.

More than a century ago, Odin, All-father, greatest of the Norse gods, went to his wayward fellow god Loki, and put him in charge of the stock market. Odin told Loki that he could do whatever he wanted, on condition that across each and every 30-year period, he ensured that the market would offer average annual returns between 7 and 11 per cent. If he flouted this rule, Odin would tie Loki under a serpent whose fangs would drip poison into Loki’s eyes from now until Ragnarök.

Loki is notoriously malevolent, and no doubt would love to take the wealth of retail investors and set it on fire, if he could. But when faced with such a — shall we say binding? — constraint, what damage could he really do? He could do plenty, says Andrew Hallam, author of Balance and other books about personal finance. Hallam uses the image of Loki as the malicious master of the market to warn us all against squandering the bounties of equity markets.

All Loki would have to do is ensure the market zigged and zagged around unpredictably. Sometimes it would deliver apparently endless bull runs. At other times it would plunge without mercy. It might alternate mini-booms and mini-crashes; it might trade sideways; it might repeat old patterns, or it might do something that seemed quite new. At every moment, the aim would be to trick investors into doing something rash.

None of that would deliver Loki’s goals if we humans weren’t so easy to fool. But we are. You can see the damage in numbers published by the investment research company Morningstar; last year it found a shortfall in annual returns of 1.7 percentage points between what investors make and the performance delivered by the funds in which they invested.

There is nothing strange about investors making a different return from the funds in which they invest. Fund returns are calculated on the basis of a lump-sum buy-and-hold investment. But even the most sober and sensible retail investor is likely to make regular payments, month by month or year by year. As a result, their returns will be different, maybe better and maybe worse.