PODCAST: Spear Phishing - Top 3 Threats

Among the top new spear phishing threats to enterprises: Extortion. Asaf Cidon of Barracuda outlines the top three spear phishing threats and new strategies to defend against them. Cidon, Barracuda's Senior Vice President, Email Protection Products, was surprised to see how quickly extortion has taken off as a prevalent threat, as outlined by Barracuda' newest spear phishing report. "We're seeing that attackers are increasingly bypassing existing email defenses by sending emails that include no attachments or links, and basically tell the recipient that the attacker has obtained a password to their account, and wants them to send some bitcoin, otherwise they will expose very embarrassing information about the recipient," Cidon says. "In our report, we found that these attacks comprise over 10 percent of all the spear phishing attacks." In an interview about the spear phishing trends outlined in this report, Cidon discusses: - Insights from Barracuda's latest report; - Why top threats are so successful; - New defensive strategies and solutions.