"Cybercriminals Return to Business as Usual in a Post-pandemic World"

According to Proofpoint, cybercriminals resumed normal operations in 2022 following two years of pandemic-induced disruption. As COVID-19 medical and economic programs began to slow down, attackers were forced to find new ways to make a living by sharpening their social engineering skills, commercializing once-sophisticated attack techniques, and creatively seeking new opportunities. From scaling brute-force and targeted attacks on cloud tenants to an increase in conversational smishing attacks and the expansion of multi-factor authentication (MFA) bypass, the cyberattack landscape in 2022 saw significant developments on multiple fronts. Despite sending over 25 million messages in 2022, which is more than double the volume of the second most prominent threat actor, Emotet's presence has been unsteady, and the group has demonstrated a lack of adaptability to the post-pandemic threat landscape. This article continues to discuss key findings from Proofpoint's annual Human Factor report.

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