Despite a nearly four-month absence, the return of Emotet within the last two weeks of September accounted for nearly 12 percent of all malicious email samples in Q3, delivering millions of messages with malicious URLs or attachments, Proofpoint found.

Emotet returns, organizations need to react

“Emotet’s return to the threat landscape and the latest sextortion malware are just the latest examples of how cybercriminals continuously revamp and broaden the scope of their attacks in hopes of more effectively targeting individuals within organizations,” said Chris Dawson, threat intelligence lead at Proofpoint.