Social media phishing attacks Attack.Phishing jumped by a massive 500 % in Q4 , driven by a huge increase in fraudulent accounts including many posing as Attack.Phishing customer support for big name brands , according to Proofpoint . The security vendor revealed the findings in its Q4 2016 Threat Summary and Year in Review report . It claimed Attack.Phishing fraudulent accounts across sites like Twitter and Facebook increased 100 % from the third to fourth quarter . Such accounts are used for phishing Attack.Phishing , malware distribution , spam and other ends . In fact , Proofpoint observed a 20 % increase in Facebook and Twitter spam from Q3 to Q4 , with the quarter recording the second highest spam volume in the year . Yet it was a particular variety of phishing that caught the eye . So-called “ angler phishing Attack.Phishing ” is a relatively new tactic in which the black hats register fake Twitter accounts that masquerade as Attack.Phishing customer support accounts . They monitor the real support accounts for irate customer messages and then quickly jump in to send messages back to those users loaded with malicious links . The tactic was particularly common among financial services and entertainment accounts , according to the report . Elsewhere , the number of new ransomware variants grew 30-fold over Q4 , and malicious email campaigns grew significantly , with Q4 's largest campaign 6.7 times the size of Q3 's . Some of the biggest campaigns apparently involved hundreds of millions of messages dropping Locky ransomware . However , there was some good news , with scams involving the spoofing of CEO emails sent to Attack.Phishing CFOs falling 28 % in the final quarter . This is partly because CFOs are more cautious about the veracity of such messages , but can also be linked to a 33 % surge in DMARC implementation which helped to block attempts to spoof Attack.Phishing the CEO ’ s email address . In addition , exploit kits remained at low levels of activity after some high profile Angler EK arrests in Q2 , although large scale malvertising campaigns persisted , Proofpoint claimed .