Security News > 2020 > July > Watch out for these subject lines in email phishing attacks
Email phishing attacks work by spoofing or referencing well-known topics that the attackers hope will arouse fear or concern or interest on the part of the recipients.
To compile its "Q2 2020 Top-Clicked Phishing Report," KnowBe4 examined tens of thousands of email subject lines from simulated phishing tests as well as "In-the-wild" email messages that employees received and reported to their IT departments as suspicious.
The templates for the simulated phishing tests, which organizations use to help educate employees, were based on real phishing attacks.
Email phishing attacks with subjects related to COVID-19 remained prevalent last quarter, accounting for 56% of all the subject lines analyzed.
Phishing attacks that exploited Facebook used such subject lines as "Your Friend Tagged a Photo of You" and "Your friend tagged you in photos on Facebook." Campaigns spoofing Twitter tried to entice people with a subject line of "Someone has sent you a Direct Message on Twitter."
News URL
Related news
- DOJ, Microsoft seize 107 domains used in Russia's Star Blizzard phishing attacks (source)
- Microsoft Detects Growing Use of File Hosting Services in Business Email Compromise Attacks (source)
- GitHub, Telegram Bots, and ASCII QR Codes Abused in New Wave of Phishing Attacks (source)
- Astaroth Banking Malware Resurfaces in Brazil via Spear-Phishing Attack (source)
- Midnight Blizzard Escalates Spear-Phishing Attacks On Over 100 Organizations (source)
- Windows infected with backdoored Linux VMs in new phishing attacks (source)
- Beware of phishing emails delivering backdoored Linux VMs! (source)
- New Phishing Tool GoIssue Targets GitHub Developers in Bulk Email Campaigns (source)
- Russian Hackers Exploit New NTLM Flaw to Deploy RAT Malware via Phishing Emails (source)
- Phishing emails increasingly use SVG attachments to evade detection (source)