Email blackmail on the rise
In extortion emails, cybercriminals threaten to publish compromising information about their victims, such as an embarrassing photo, and demand payment in cryptocurrency. Attackers often purchase victims' login credentials or obtain them through data breaches to "prove" that their threat is legitimate. To gain a better understanding of the financial infrastructure attackers use in extortion emails, Barracuda partnered with researchers at Columbia University to analyze over 300.000 emails captured by Barracuda Networks' AI-based detectors over a period of one year year when extortion attacks were detected. Below are the…