According to Barracuda, over 92% of organizations faced six credential compromises from email-based social engineering in 2023, with 86% attributed to phishing and scams. Attack trends include:
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Conversation hijacking: Up 70% from 2022, attackers monitor compromised accounts to craft convincing messages, impacting 0.5% of attacks.
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Business email compromise (BEC): Increased to 10.6% from 8%, targeting money transfers via impersonation.
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Extortion: Accounted for 2.7% of attacks, threatening victims with exposure of sensitive content.
Gmail dominated at 22% of attacks, mainly for BEC scams. Bit.ly was most used for URL shortening, facilitating disguised malicious links. QR code phishing rose to 5% in late 2023, leveraging personal devices outside corporate security.
