New report identifies the latest ways cybercriminals launch spear-phishing attacks and exploits compromised email accounts
Highlights:
Business email compromise (BEC) attacks are increasing as cybercriminals see how lucrative this type of attack can be.
Attackers’ exploitation of fears around the COVID-19 pandemic shows how quickly they can adapt to current events.
Hackers use multiple tactics to disguise malicious links and avoid detection by URL protection solutions.
Barracuda, a trusted partner and leading provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, today released a new report with key findings about the ways cybercriminals are adapting quickly to current events and new tactics. The latest report, titled Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 5 - Best practices to defend against evolving attacks, reveals new details about these highly targeted threats, including the latest tactics used by cybercriminals and the steps you can take to defend your business.
The report takes an in-depth look at how attackers are quickly adapting to current events and using new tricks to successfully execute attacks — spear phishing, business email compromise, pandemic-related scams, and other types. It also tackles why organizations need to invest in protection against lateral phishing and other internally-launched attacks from compromised accounts, including solutions that use artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Attack trends and beyond
Barracuda’s research reveals key takeaways about how these targeted attacks are evolving and the approaches cybercriminals are using to maximize their impact.
Business email compromise (BEC) makes up 12% of the spear-phishing
attacks analyzed, an increase from just 7% in 2019.
72% of COVID-19-related attacks are scamming. In comparison, 36% of overall attacks are scamming. Attackers prefer to use COVID-19 in their less targeted scamming attacks that focus on fake cures and donations.
13% of all spear-phishing attacks come from internally compromised accounts, so organizations need to invest in protecting their internal email traffic as much as they do in protecting from external senders.
71% of spear-phishing attacks include malicious URLs, but only 30% of BEC attacks included a link. Hackers using BEC want to establish trust with their victims and expect a reply to their email, and the lack of a URL makes it harder to detect the attack.
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