Security company: 91 percent bait attacks from Gmail addresses

Security company Barracuda Networks states that 90 percent of bait attacks come from Gmail addresses. They say this after a study in which the company examined the e-mail traffic of 10,500 companies. About 35 percent of them received at least one bait attack email in September.

A bait attack is a type of phishing email that allows attackers to check whether an email address is in use before committing to actual phishing. They do this by sending an email with little or no text in the text field, while also containing no links or malicious attachments. As a result, the emails are less likely to be noticed by spam filters.

According to the researchers, the malicious people mainly use free mail services such as those of Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo. It is striking that more than 90 percent of the bait attacks came from a Gmail address. According to the researchers, this is because Gmail has a good, reliable reputation. In their report, the researchers write that bait attacks should be removed as soon as possible and should not be opened.

Update, 6.15 pm: ‘attachments’ changed to ‘harmful attachments’.

Image research Barracuda