How North Korea's international isolation shapes its cyber attacks. And a new webinar explores findings from this year's State of the Phish report.
This week on The Threat Hub: State-sponsored attackers, also known as advanced persistent threats (APTs), capture the imagination because the stakes are so high. Groups from Russia, Iran and China have been involved in espionage, spreading propaganda, and even full-blown sabotage in some cases. But for North Korean attacker TA444, the situation is a little different. Unlike its international APT counterparts, the group’s primary goal is raising funds by stealing cryptocurrency. And they’re pretty good at it, making off with more than $1 billion during 2022. A recent episode of the Discarded podcast has all these details and more. Join senior threat researcher Greg Lesnewich and hosts Selena Larson and Crista Giering for a closer look at TA444, as well as a wider conversation about how international isolation shapes North Korea’s approach to cyber espionage.
Following on from the launch of this year’s State of the Phish report, phishing and security awareness expert Sara Pan, recently hosted a webinar exploring the biggest insights. Direct financial losses from phishing rose by 76% last year, while most users still have gaps in their understanding of key concepts. Check out the on-demand recording for a rapid overview and some targeted recommendations.
And on this week’s Five-Minute Forecast, Microsoft sets out plans to curtail OneNote abuse, Emotet returns after a three month break, and senior threat intelligence analyst Crista Giering discusses new activity by Russian propaganda and disinformation group, TA499.
Equip your team with threat intelligence
Go Deeper with our Premium Threat Info Service
Connect with threat analysts, understand threats with intelligence specific to your situation, and gain 24/7 visibility into the latest threat discoveries.
Learn MoreDrawing on insights and data from our products and researchers, the Human Factor tells the story of a year when cybersecurity jumped from the tech page to the front page. Our annual threat report explores user trends from our uniquely people-centric lens. See how vulnerabilities, attacks and privilege are transforming the threat landscape.
About The Threat Research Team
Our threat researchers are responsible for tracking shifts in the cybersecurity landscape, identifying new attacks as they emerge, and monitoring how threat actor tactics, techniques and procedures change over time. The threats they detect and the signatures they write feed into our platforms and are keystones in a system that analyzes more than 2.6 billion emails, 49 billion URLs and 1.9 billion attachments every single day.
By studying what cyber criminals are doing now, our threat researchers are better able to anticipate what they’ll do next. Every day, their work keeps our customers protected—not just from today’s attacks, but tomorrow’s threats as they evolve.

Browse the threat hub
Subscribe to the Proofpoint Blog