BRAND PHISHING

Scammers imitate brands nearly everyone recognises and uses daily

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2026

Microsoft is the brand most imitated by phishers, study finds. ChatGPT enters the top 10 for the first time.

Brand phishing continues to be a growing problem around the world, causing reputational damage and impacting consumer confidence. The more trusted and well known an organisation is, the more it is a target for fraudsters because that trust can be transferred to their criminal schemes. 

 

According to recently published international research, Microsoft continues to be the single most impersonated brand in Q2 2026, appearing in 23% of all brand phishing attempts, far ahead of any other company 

 

The top five impersonated brands – Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, Apple and Amazon – together account for more than half of all brand phishing attempts tracked this quarter by Check Point, a global software technology company. 

Woman with surprised expression holds laptop showing a red screen reading &aposscam&apos

Photo: Nataliya Vaitkevich/Pexels

That concentration is worth noting, Check Point believes. It indicates that scammers aren’t spreading their efforts across thousands of brands.  

 

“They’re focused on a small set of names that nearly everyone recognises and uses daily, since that recognition is what makes the con work in the first place. 

 

“If a message looks like it came from a brand you already use and rely on, your guard drops. You’re not evaluating a stranger’s request. You’re responding to what feels like routine correspondence from a company you already have a relationship with. That single psychological shortcut is the entire business model behind brand phishing.” 

 

AI tools now on the radar of cyber scammers 

 

ChatGPT entered the top 10 most impersonated brands for the first time, signalling that AI tools are now firmly on criminals’ radar.  

 

“It’s a strong signal of where attacker attention is heading next. As AI tools move from novelty to daily habit for millions of people managing subscriptions, payments and work tasks through them, they become just as attractive a target as any bank or tech giant,” the company says in the blog post published on its website. 

 

Other brands in the top 10 for being the most targeted are Adobe, Facebook, WhatsApp and PayPal 

 

Technology was the most targeted industry overall, followed by social networks and banking. 

“Real-world cases this quarter ranged from fake payment failure emails to full replica online stores, fake login pages, and malware disguised as a software update,” Check Point notes. 

 

The full top 10 of most targeted brands by scammers is: 

 

  1. Microsoft. 
  2. LinkedIn. 
  3. Google. 
  4. Apple. 
  5. Amazon. 
  6. Adobe. 
  7. Facebook. 
  8. WhatsApp. 
  9. PayPal. 
  10. ChatGPT. 

You can read the full blog post here. 

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