Hackers Spill the Wine: Lockdown Led to Rise in Wine Domains and Wine Scammers

The pandemic led to an increase in interest in virtual happy hours, which coincided with a significant rise in wine-themed domain registrations. Recorded Future observed a 2-3 times increase in new wine-themed domain registrations post-COVID compared to pre-pandemic levels. Malicious wine-themed domains followed a similar trend, with the percentage of malicious domains ranging between 3% and 5%. Area 1 Security identified over 25,000 instances of these domains being used in phishing campaigns targeting various industries. The report suggests that spam and phishing campaigns leverage current trends and events to push malicious activity. To protect against such threats, organizations should implement a defense-in-depth strategy for email protection, use cloud email infrastructure, and augment it with intelligence from Recorded Future and Area 1 Security.