October 30, 2024 at 03:18PM
VIPRE Security Group’s Q3 2024 Email Threat Trends Report reveals a surge in business email compromise (BEC) attacks, particularly targeting the manufacturing sector. BEC scams comprised 58% of phishing attempts, with sophisticated impersonation tactics prevalent. The report highlights increased malicious attachments and emphasizes the need for enhanced cybersecurity measures and employee education.
### Meeting Takeaways from Q3 2024 Email Threat Trends Report by VIPRE Security Group
1. **Overview of Cyber Threat Landscape**
– VIPRE Security Group released its Q3 2024 report, analyzing data from 1.8 billion processed emails, with 208 million deemed malicious.
– The report emphasizes a growing focus on business email compromise (BEC) tactics by cybercriminals.
2. **Rise in Business Email Compromise (BEC)**
– BEC scams now constitute 58% of phishing attempts, with 89% of these involving impersonation of authority figures like executives.
– BEC attacks targeting the manufacturing sector increased sharply, from 2% in Q1 to 10% in Q3 2024, possibly due to employees’ mobile sign-in practices under production pressures.
3. **Email Threat Composition**
– The report highlights that scams (34%), commercial spam (30%), and phishing (20%) dominate email threats, overshadowing ransomware and malware, which together make up less than 20% of attacks.
– A notable trend is the shift towards more sophisticated tactics with malspam favoring malicious attachments (64%) over links (36%).
4. **Emerging Attack Techniques**
– Cybercriminals are using more deceptive methods, such as disguising malicious attachments as common files (e.g., voicemail recordings, security updates), with Microsoft PDFs and .DOCX files being the most common malicious formats.
– URL redirection remains a favored tactic, accounting for 52% of phishing attacks, leading victims to fraudulent websites that appear legitimate.
5. **Top Malspam Family**
– The “Malware Family of the Quarter” is identified as Redline, which has been prevalent since Q3 2023. It targets sensitive information and can completely compromise affected machines.
6. **Call to Action**
– Usman Choudhary, CPTO of VIPRE, stresses the sophistication of these threats and the urgent need for robust cybersecurity measures and employee education, especially with the upcoming holiday season posing additional risks.
### Conclusion
The VIPRE Q3 2024 report highlights the evolving landscape of email threats, particularly emphasizing the need for vigilance against BEC and the sophistication of phishing attacks. Organizations are encouraged to strengthen their cybersecurity frameworks and enhance employee awareness to mitigate these risks effectively.