Hackers are all about hitting us in familiar territory. Hackers are deploying the internet’s sign posts of security to elicit the trust of their victims. Specifically, cyber criminals are manipulating HTTPS, the internet protocol that denotes encryption and security, to trick users into a false sense of security.
It’s estimated that 58% of all phishing campaigns use HTTPS, which both makes it less likely that users will identify the fraudulent website and that internet browsers will flag the unsecured connection. This tactic has become so prevalent that the FBI issued a public warning this summer urging people to take special care to evaluate their digital communications for intent rather than relying on traditional representations of internet security.