The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has released its Phishing Activity Trends Report for Q3 2024, offering an in-depth analysis of recent phishing attacks and identity theft techniques. Fortra contributed to this report, with John Wilson providing insights on business email compromise (BEC).
Originally published in AWPG.
Excerpt: “In the third quarter of 2024, we saw an alarming new trend in extortion emails. Previous extortion messages tended to be generic. We now see bad actors customizing their threats. Attack emails we began to see late in Q3 included the recipient's phone number and home address as part of the lure. Many of these messages even contained a Google Street View image of the intended victim's home. The use of personal data in the extortion message is clearly meant to scare the victim into compliance with the attacker's demands.”