A record 2 million phishing sites reported in 2020, highest in a decade

The year 2020 was a rollercoaster ride. With people shifting to remote work due to the pandemic, cybercriminals saw this as an opportunity and became more active than ever.
According to an Atlas VPN investigation, Google detected a record-high number of phishing websites last year, reaching more than 2.11 million.
“These websites pretend to be legitimate so that they can trick users into typing in their usernames and passwords or sharing other private information. Web pages that impersonate legitimate bank websites or online stores are common examples of phishing sites.”, explains Google’s Transparency Report.
In 2020, phishing sites jumped to 2.11 million, constituting a 25% growth over 2019, when the tech giant discovered 1.69 million malicious domains.
Moving back to 2010, Google detected an average of 317 dangerous sites per day. Last year, the number jumped to 5789 websites per day, representing a 1726% surge in a decade.
Looking at the last decade year-by-year, the volume of phishing portals grew by 43% on average.