Meta, Amazon, Apple Most Impersonated in Phishing Scams: Study

Cybercriminals are currently running rampant, trying their best to generate and distribute phishing scams, as per a recently published study.

The research speaks about which tech giants are amongst the most impersonated in this regard and from what we can see, Meta, Amazon, and Apple lead the pack.

The study by MailSuite sheds light on which companies continue to be targeted between January 2022 and March 2024. Meta's Facebook for instance has received more than 10,000 attempts in around two years span where scammers try their best to impersonate the company to get more out of it.

The threat actors involved are really doing wonders in terms of making sure their moves don’t get noticed as fake, leading to so many falling into the trap.

Further more, scammers have impersonated Microsoft 4,518 times, with PayPal being imitated 4,111 times. Meanwhile, when you look outside the US, it was a top mobile brand from Japan called "au by KDDI" that led the pack in terms of being scammed over and over again.

• Also read: Online Scams Are Getting Worse Thanks To AI, New Study Reveals

As per MailtSuite, near to 25% of phishing scams linked to impersonation entail those names which had to do with IT and tech sector. Meanwhile, banking and the finance sector were not left behind, coming in a close second position.

This analysis was based on phishing reports that served as scams getting listed across Phish Tank which is a top name in terms of impersonation attempts.

Experts urge industry professionals to rigorously verify emails to avoid phishing scams that prompt clicking on malicious links and sharing personal information.

Clicking on links in phishing emails can install ransomware, leading to data theft over time. It's crucial to verify emails to distinguish legitimate messages from scams.

Read next: How to Create a Strong Password in 2024

And: Scammers Are Now Tricking Victims More With Phishing Emails And Texts Than Phone Calls
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Survey Reveals 80% of Firms Use AI for Visuals, But 70% Fear Data Leaks, Plagiarism

A survey by Morning Consult which was powered by Canva found out how many business firms are using AI for their visual content. Even with the extensive use of AI in workplaces, there are still some worries that executives face. According to a new survey of 3707 business leaders, four in five business firms are using AI to create visual content. Even though these firms are using AI for their content, they are worried that they can face a number of issues. 70% of business leaders are worried about "accidentally sharing sensitive information" while the same number of them are also worried about plagiarism/copyright-infringement around the content produced by AI. 68% are worried people will confuse AI-generated content with human-produced content. 64% of them are also worried that the increase in AI for visual content can result in job loss.

Many designing and editing tools like Canva, Figma and Adobe have introduced AI features. Because of this, many companies are using AI for producing visual content. CEO of Klarna Sebastian Siemiatkowski said (in a deleted post on X) if we produce visual content with the help of AI, it can save $10 million on marketing this year. One thing to know is that marketing isn’t the only thing that needs visual content generation as it is also used in decks and proposals by sales leaders.

46% of the business leaders who were surveyed said that their PR professionals use AI to create their communication material while 96% of the leaders said that they are using AI to train their employees. Because businesses are interested in using AI, Canva has introduced its package known as Canva Enterprise that has all the tools and AI features under one subscription. Canva also says that due to its Magic Media Tool, users have generated over 1.4 billion images.

Read next: 

• Study Shows How Skin Color, Followers and Age Impact Influencer Earnings

• eMarketer Report Shows Video Takes Center Stage on Facebook and Instagram

by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

AI Systems May Soon Run Out Of Human Content Used To Keep Them Updated

AI systems have been called out for months regarding how they end up eating so much data published online.

The systems in use today are now gobbling up collections of human data at a rate that not many people had anticipated. This is why authors of new research are ringing alarm bells to make others realize how data might run out soon.

So can you imagine what would happen if content used to keep making AI smarter no longer exists? It’s like turmoil because that means systems cannot be updated and therefore won’t be working at the pace that most of us may wish it to.

Wee now know that AI systems including ChatGPT might soon be out of trillions of words produced by humans that keep getting published online.

The study by Epoch AI mentioned how the human supply of such content would soon get exhausted and that means they couldn’t be trained any further in terms of what keeps getting shared and produced on a usual basis.

The research was rolled out on Thursday where it was mentioned how tech firms that have been taking content without consent for so long to transform their AI models into the best thing out there today might be facing more hurdles now than before.

You might like to liken it to the gold rush witnessed when you deal with a long list of finite natural resources. One author of the study highlighted how AI will soon be facing some serious challenges on this front.

To ensure progress is maintained after natural reserves are diminished means so much.

This is why you’ll find plenty of companies working in the short term who are racing against time to pay for quality data like Google and OpenAI. So what we can confirm is that such AI chatbots won’t have access to new articles or blogs that carry on with AI development and therefore won’t be putting a lot of pressure on firms to tap into data deemed to be private.

Yes, so as you can tell, the bottleneck here is not small but it’s massive. If you begin hitting such constraints, it’s high time models are scaled up as a means to expand capabilities and better quality of what they produce.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: eMarketer Report Shows Video Takes Center Stage on Facebook and Instagram
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

eMarketer Report Shows Video Takes Center Stage on Facebook and Instagram

Facebook and Instagram are two of the biggest social media platforms right now. Both are under Meta Platforms umbrella and also have some combined features to facilitate the users. Meta tries so hard to add many features to these two platforms to make them fun and interactive for users. As a user of these two apps, you must have noticed that there are a lot of videos on the app, commonly referred to as reels. According to a new report by eMarketer, many of the adult users spent half of their time watching videos on Facebook last year. Users of Instagram are set to spend 60% of their total time on the app watching videos this year.

In 2024, it is predicted that adult users of Facebook are going to spend 17 minutes average of their day watching reels while they will spend 21 minutes watching videos on Instagram. So, according to eMarketer, this year users will spend 32 minutes on Facebook and 36 minutes on Instagram on average everyday. This shows how Meta is trying hard to push users to spend time on their apps. This year, it is predicted that US adults will spend 40% of their social media time on Instagram and Facebook, and this percentage is expected to grow 9.4%.

Meta is still trying to get back its market shares after they fell down to 37.4% in 2022 to 51.8% in 2019 because of TikTok. The report by eMarketer also said that users are going to spend 54 minutes everyday on average on TikTok this year.

Read next: New Analysis Finds that Webmasters and SEOs Need Thousands of Backlinks to Appear in Google's Top Search Results
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Study Shows How Skin Color, Followers and Age Impact Influencer Earnings

According to a report by SevenSix Agency, influencers on social media sites are paid based on their skin color. The report says that influencers who have darker skin are paid 44.63% less than influencers who have light skin. This pay disparity is also seen among influencers with different hair colors and textures. The 2024 influencer-pricing report studied the difference in pay between white influencers and influencers of color in the UK and it was found that influencers' pay varies according to the ethnic background and age of influencers.

It was found that creators or influencers who were Black were paid 34% less than White influencers in 2024. This difference was 22% in 2022. South Asian influencers are paid 30.70% less, Southeast Asian influencers are paid 57.22% less and East Asian influencers are paid $38.40% less than White creators.

SevenSix Agency's founder Charlotte Stavrou said that she approached different brands to educate them about this racial disparity. Most of the brands do not do it voluntarily as most of the time they aren’t even aware that they are not treating creators from different ethnic backgrounds equally. Stavrou also suggested brands some ways that can help them in negotiating with creators for pay rates.

The report also talked about the pay rates creators of different colors get on their reels. The creators with deep tan on their skin are paid $1,187 on average for a reel while creators with light skin can get $2,142 for the same reel. There was also a difference in pay between creators with straight and curly hair. Influencers with type 2A hair, which are slightly wavy, were paid more ($2,191) as compared to influencers with type 4B hair, which are extremely curly hair. Their pay was reported to be $1,023 on average.

Another pay disparity could be seen among Gen-Z creators and Gen-X, Boomers and Millennials. Influencers between 18 to 39 years of age are paid 144% more than the influencers older than 40 years. On the other hand, influencers between the ages of 40 to 59 are paid $1,978 while influencers between the ages 18-25 are paid less ($1592). 60% of the older influencers also said that they are treated differently than younger influencers on social media apps.

• Also read: New Analysis Finds that Webmasters and SEOs Need Thousands of Backlinks to Appear in Google's Top Search Results

Similarly, the data reveals that influencer earnings significantly increase with follower count. For example, influencers with 1,000 to 5,000 followers earn between £250 and £350 per feed post, while those with 300,000+ followers command £4,000 to £15,000. Similarly, reel fees range from £300-£400 for smaller influencers to £4,500-£18,000 for those with large followings. Story fees for a set of three also rise dramatically, from £150-£200 for the smallest influencers to £3,000-£15,000 for the largest. These examples illustrate how follower count directly impacts influencer earnings.

Read next: TikTok Leads May 2024 App Revenue with $203M, YouTube Follows with $131M; Top 10 Hit $791M

by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

TikTok Leads May 2024 App Revenue with $203M, YouTube Follows with $131M; Top 10 Hit $791M

This week, AppFigures released an analysis of the highest-earning and most-downloaded apps for May 2024, which came up with findings that were more or less a continuation of the trends observed in April.

Here are some of the key highlights for highest-earning apps.

TikTok topped the revenue charts, generating an impressive $169 million from the iOS App Store and another $34 million from Google Play in one month, bringing its total revenue to $203 million. Coming in second place was YouTube, with revenue of $131 million from the iOS App Store.

Disney+ grossed a total revenue of $107 million, with $76 million earned through iOS and the rest through Google Play. Fourth was Tinder, with a total of $88 million in earnings, whereas Max app was in the last position in the top five, with $70 million.

Combined Total	Revenue	iOS App Store	Revenue	Google Play	Revenue
TikTok	$203M	TikTok	$169M	Google One	$35M
YouTube	$131M	YouTube	$131M	TikTok	$34M
Disney+	$107M	Disney+	$76M	Disney+	$31M
Tinder	$88M	Tinder	$72M	Max	$18M
Max	$70M	Max	$52M	Tinder	$16M
Bumble	$42M	Tencent Video	$38M	Spotify	$14M
LinkedIn	$40M	Bumble	$34M	Crunchyroll	$14M
Tencent Video	$38M	LinkedIn	$33M	Twitch	$11M
Crunchyroll	$36M	QQ Music	$32M	Amazon	$9M
Google One	$36M	Hulu	$30M	Peacock TV	$9M

Further down the list, 腾讯视频 (Tencent Video) made $38M on iOS alone, and Bumble brought in $42M overall. LinkedIn took in $40M, most of which from iOS, and QQ音乐 (QQ Music) brought in $32M on that platform. Hulu rounded out the top ten with $36M in overall revenue.

Standouts across the top lists for the month included Spotify, which received an estimated $14 million from Google Play. In comparison, Crunchyroll grossed an equivalent $14m, Twitch $11m, and both Amazon and Peacock TV $9m apiece just from Google Play store. In total, the top 10 applications accumulated $791 million in net revenue during May month, both from iOS and Android stores.

Most Downloaded Apps Worldwide in May

May proved to be the most active month in mobile app downloads, with a significant shift in rankings compared to April, i.e. according to Appfigures.

Instagram led the downloads chart with a combined total of 66 million number, driven by the largest share from Google Play—58 million. TikTok came in second, with 51 million—split between 15 million on iOS and 36 million on Google Play.

Facebook stood third with 50M downloads, all from Google Play. WhatsApp sustained fourth with a total of 38M downloads. CapCut and Temu took the fifth and sixth spots, respectively, with 28M and 29M downloads each.

Combined Total	Downloads	iOS App Store	Downloads	Google Play	Downloads
Instagram	66M	TikTok	15M	Instagram	58M
TikTok	51M	CapCut	10M	Facebook	43M
Facebook	50M	Temu	9M	TikTok	36M
WhatsApp	38M	Google Maps	9M	WhatsApp	31M
CapCut	29M	Google	9M	Messenger	24M
Temu	28M	Instagram	8M	Telegram	21M
Messenger	28M	ChatGPT	8M	JioCinema	20M
Telegram	27M	YouTube	8M	Temu	19M
Snapchat	21M	WhatsApp	7M	CapCut	19M
JioCinema	20M	Threads	7M	WhatsApp Business	17M

Considerable successes, primarily on Google Play, were also registered by Messenger and Telegram, with nearly 27 and 28 million downloads. In the top ten, there were also Snapchat and JioCinema, downloaded 21M and 20M times. Notably, high download numbers were also recorded by WhatsApp Business app, with 17M downloads; CapCut and Telegram, both at 19M; JioCinema, 20M, on Google Play. TikTok was a decently large downloader on iOS, with 15M; CapCut was at 10M; Temu hit 9M, among several others. The report from Appfigures found that in May, the top 10 apps together racked up 358 million downloads across both major app stores—a solid 10% share higher than in April.

So, there you have it — TikTok's making it rain with $203 million, and Instagram's just casually collecting 66 million downloads. Welcome to the wild world of apps in May 2024!

Read next: How to Build Strong Passwords For Your Apps and Keep Hackers at Bay
by Asim BN via Digital Information World

New Analysis Finds that Webmasters and SEOs Need Thousands of Backlinks to Appear in Google's Top Search Results

According to a new analysis by Internet Market Ninja, it was found that it is not possible to rank in top 10 search results of Google if your website doesn’t have a lot of links. The analysis found out that the websites that were ranking in top 10 on Google all had more than 1,000 backlinks. Only 0.3 websites in the top 10 results were the ones who had less than 100 backlinks.

This shows that despite Google saying that backlinks aren’t the top factors to rank in Google search result pages, websites still need a lot of backlinks to get ranked. The findings from the analysis suggest that 3.4% websites with 100 to 1,000 backlinks have ranked in top 10 on Google. 33.7% websites with 1,000 to 10,000 backlinks are in top 10 results, while among the top-ranking websites, 36.9% had between 10,000 to 100,000 referring domains. 5% of websites with more than one million backlinks were also ranked in the top 10 on Google.

• Also read: Google Prioritizes Relevance in Links, Ignoring Those from Irrelevant Sources and Emphasizing Local Links

Some other interesting things that were found from the analysis were the presence of Amazon and Walmart in top 10 rankings. Amazon ranked in 164 out of 200 keywords on Google’s top 10 search results which was followed by Walmart for 57 keywords. The website which was the weakest in terms of rankings had 54 referring domains. The minimum requirement for ranking in top 10 Google results is 164 domain backlinks on average. The study also says that not all links hold the same value. It all depends on relevance of anchor text, authority/importance of linking site and the total number of clicks on the link.

Read next: 

• Study Reveals Rising User Frustration with Online Searches; Calls for Improved AI Solutions and Transparent Advertising

• Study Reveals Gen Z's Shift from Search Engines to Social Media; Signals Changing Trends in Online Discovery
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World