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Extortion/Sextortion Attacks Continue to Proliferate

These attacks prey on human emotion and are frequently text-based, often harnessing generative AI to sound more realistic.

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What is the attack?

  • These attacks, which continue to evade SEGs like Proofpoint, are social engineering schemes where attackers threaten to expose sensitive information about the victim unless a cryptocurrency ransom is paid
  • These attacks often target work email addresses, leveraging the fear of professional ruin

Why did it get through?

  • The emails lack typical malicious indicators like suspicious attachments or URLs.
  • They are often text-based and sent from seemingly legitimate email addresses.
  • Traditional systems focus on known threats and struggle with context-based attacks.

What is required to solve for this attack?

  • Through Content Analysis and Natural Language Processing, Abnormal understands the context + content + tone to infer the extortion attempt.
  • Abnormal uses behavioral analysis, and normal communication patterns within the company to flag suspicious and risky communication.