"Spear phishing... remains the principal attack vector for most cybercrimes," says Europol in a new report. Sixty-five percent of targeted attack groups use it as their primary infection vector, while 32% of breaches involve phishing. During 2018, up to 0.55 % of all incoming emails were phishing emails, while phishing was present in 78% of cyber espionage incidents.
In its attempt to alleviate cybercrime, Europol has established advisory groups for financial services, communication providers and internet security. It meets with private sector partners in these advisory groups to discuss industry-specific cybercrime threats and trends to enable development and cooperation on joint public/private action plans.
Over two days in March 2019, 70 global financial institutions, internet security firms, and telecommunications providers met and shared insights on phishing. Now Europol has published (
PDF) the outcome of that meeting in what it describes as "a unique, law enforcement-industry view on the threat of spear phishing."
Steven Wilson, Head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre commented: "Spear phishing is a major enabler of some of the most serious forms of cybercrime, especially ransomware, and can cause real harm to European citizens and organisations. We can only tackle a threat of this scale effectively by working closely with key partners from across industry. The EC3 Advisory Groups and this report are a reflection of our ongoing cooperation to tackle the threat from cybercrime."
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