Targeted Attacks: Redefining Spear Phishing and Business Email Compromise

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2309.14166v1
• Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 14:21:59 GMT
• Title: Targeted Attacks: Redefining Spear Phishing and Business Email Compromise
• Authors: Sarah Wassermann, Maxime Meyer, Sébastien Goutal, Damien Riquet,
• Abstract summary: Some rare, severely damaging email threats - known as spear phishing or Business Email Compromise - have emerged. We describe targeted-attack-detection techniques as well as social-engineering methods used by fraudsters. We present text-based attacks - with textual content as malicious payload - and compare non-targeted and targeted variants.
• Score: 0.17175834535889653
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: In today's digital world, cybercrime is responsible for significant damage to organizations, including financial losses, operational disruptions, or intellectual property theft. Cyberattacks often start with an email, the major means of corporate communication. Some rare, severely damaging email threats - known as spear phishing or Business Email Compromise - have emerged. However, the literature disagrees on their definition, impeding security vendors and researchers from mitigating targeted attacks. Therefore, we introduce targeted attacks. We describe targeted-attack-detection techniques as well as social-engineering methods used by fraudsters. Additionally, we present text-based attacks - with textual content as malicious payload - and compare non-targeted and targeted variants.

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