In an effort to better understand why some users are more heavily targeted by phishing emails and malware than others, search giant Google teamed up with researchers at Stanford University. The study examined over a period of 5 months 1.2 billion malicious emails and their intended targets against Gmail users, to determine which factors influence the risk of attack.
The researchers discovered that each phishing and malware campaign lasted one to three days on average. In a week, such campaigns accounted for 100 million phishing and malware emails targeting Gmail users worldwide.
The researchers found that users in the US were the most popular targets (42% of all attacks), followed by the Untied Kingdom (10%) and Japan (5%).
In addition, age played a role: Users between the ages of 55 and 64 were 1.64 times more likely to be targeted when compared to 18 to 24 year-olds.
Read more about it here.