Security News > 2021 > August > We COVID-Clicked on Garbage, Report Finds: Podcast

In the company's annual Human Factor 2021 report assessing how the threat landscape morphed over the past year - released on Wednesday - Proofpoint researchers scratched their heads over the reasons for so many users succumbing to malicious CAPTCHAs or clicking on poisoned images in steganography attacks.

Since its inception in 2014, the Human Factor report has looked at how people play into risk, including where users are most vulnerable, how attackers target them, and the havoc that can be wreaked when threat actors compromise privileged access to data, systems and other resources.

With regards to the success of steganography attacks and rigged CAPTCHAs, it could have been distraction, could have been who knows what, Proofpoint researchers shrugged: "It's not clear why users were more vulnerable to either technique," they wrote.

So we break it down in terms of, if they are looking to exploit that human vulnerability, what are the vulnerabilities, where do they exist and who is being attacked? And then, you know, kind of what level of seniority tends to get to attacked the most, and also kind of what types of roles and industries tend to get attacked most now.

Your executive summary said that Attacks using CAPTCHA have garnered 50 times as many clicks as the year prior.

Now, another thing that you guys have called out in the report is steganography: It's had an astonishing jump in success rates in attacks.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/we-covid-clicked-on-garbage-report-podcast/168340/