In-depth report: How cybercriminals are using email account takeover

Email account takeover represents a growing threat to businesses, and cybercriminals are evolving how they use these types of attacks. Attackers are frequently using accounts compromised through email account takeover to launch lateral phishing attacks.

To expose the details of these types of threats and the latest tactics attackers are using to avoid detection, Barracuda recently released an in-depth research report in conjunction with researchers from UC Berkley and UC Davis.

The report, Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 2 - Email Account Takeover: Defending Against Lateral Phishing, reveals new details about these growing and evolving threats, how they’re getting stealthier and more convincing — and the critical precautions to help defend your business.

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Fresh insights on evolving threats

Barracuda’s research uncovered fresh insights on email account takeover, lateral phishing, and why the combination has been so successful for cybercriminals. Highlights from the report include:

• 1 in 7 businesses experienced lateral phishing attacks in a seven-month period, based on a random sample of enterprise organizations.


• More than 60 percent of organizations that were attacked experienced multiple incidents.


• About 11 percent of attacks managed to successfully compromise additional employee accounts.


• 42 percent of the lateral phishing incidents weren’t reported to the organization’s IT or security team.


• More than 55 percent of the lateral-phishing attacks targeted recipients with some personal or work relationship to the hijacked email account.


• 37 percent of lateral phishing attacks used tailored content that was enterprise-oriented or highly specific to the victim’s organization.

Get your copy of Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 2 - Email Account Takeover: Defending Against Lateral Phishing now to see the full results for yourself and identify ways to stay ahead of these types of evolving attacks. Addressing the problem requires understanding both the latest tactics being used by cybercriminals and the critical precautions available to help defend your business.

Get your FREE copy right now!