Phishing attacks are quite serious because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making you lose access to your personal data. While these attacks are bad enough in and of themselves, one thing that has the potential to end up making them even more of an issue is the fact that they are getting increasingly sophisticated. One way in which attackers are increasing sophistication is by sending bait emails to try and do research to figure out whether or not a target would be likely to click on a suspicious link in the first place to increase their overall chances of success.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Barracuda Networks conducted research to confirm that this was, in fact, what was happening. 35% of the 10,500 organizations that were included in this report said that they had received at least one bait email in September, and these emails went out to three different addresses on average. The interesting thing is that these attacks usually don’t include any kinds of malicious links which is why they are able to get through the various security measures that the organization might have ended up putting into place.
However, one thing that should be noted is that these bait attacks often use Gmail and other free email services which indicates that the security in these services might not be up to the mark in a wide range of ways. As per the data, 91 percent of all bait attacks conducted over Gmail. For the most part, security is of paramount concern and Google needs to make sure that its services aren’t being used for bait attacks that can eventually lead to phishing attacks down the line. The level of risk is far too high and steps need to be taken to bring it down.
Read next: Google Expands Blocking Capabilities to Comments in Google Drive
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Barracuda Networks conducted research to confirm that this was, in fact, what was happening. 35% of the 10,500 organizations that were included in this report said that they had received at least one bait email in September, and these emails went out to three different addresses on average. The interesting thing is that these attacks usually don’t include any kinds of malicious links which is why they are able to get through the various security measures that the organization might have ended up putting into place.
However, one thing that should be noted is that these bait attacks often use Gmail and other free email services which indicates that the security in these services might not be up to the mark in a wide range of ways. As per the data, 91 percent of all bait attacks conducted over Gmail. For the most part, security is of paramount concern and Google needs to make sure that its services aren’t being used for bait attacks that can eventually lead to phishing attacks down the line. The level of risk is far too high and steps need to be taken to bring it down.
Read next: Google Expands Blocking Capabilities to Comments in Google Drive