Business email compromise (BEC) attacks have surged over the past year-and-a-half, while scams designed to part users with their money remain a persistent phishing threat, according to Barracuda Networks.
Volume 5 of the security vendor’s Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends report details the activity of targeted email threats during the period August-October 2020, distilled from 2.3 million attacks during the period.
Barracuda Networks has created 13 classes of email threat, which are not mutually exclusive: spam, malware, BEC, data exfiltration, URL phishing, scamming, spear-phishing, domain impersonation, brand impersonation, extortion, conversation hijacking, lateral phishing and account takeover.
Of the spear-phishing attacks it recorded during the period, BEC detections grew by 5% from the period December 2018-February 2019 to reach 12% of the total.