Email Bombing Exploits Cognitive Overload for Fraud and Harassment
Summary
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Email bombing, a technique used to overwhelm inboxes, is exploited for both fraud and harassment by targeting cognitive overload. This method buries critical information under a deluge of emails, making it difficult for victims to process important messages. The same tactic is employed in harassment to silence victims and in fraud to hide evidence, highlighting a shared attack surface. This reveals a blind spot in threat intelligence, where defenses are organized around adversary types rather than human vulnerabilities.
Timeline
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18.02.2026 22:56 1 articles · 23h ago
Email Bombing Used to Hide Fraudulent Activity
An individual experienced email bombing, where hundreds of mailing list subscriptions were used to bury three fraudulent welcome emails from American Express. This incident highlights the effectiveness of email bombing in both fraud and harassment contexts, exploiting cognitive overload to achieve the attacker's goals.
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- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56
Information Snippets
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Email bombing involves sending a large volume of emails to overwhelm a victim's inbox.
First reported: 18.02.2026 22:561 source, 1 articleShow sources
- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56
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This technique is used to hide fraudulent activities, such as unauthorized credit card applications.
First reported: 18.02.2026 22:561 source, 1 articleShow sources
- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56
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Email bombing is also a common harassment tactic to silence victims by overwhelming them with messages.
First reported: 18.02.2026 22:561 source, 1 articleShow sources
- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56
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The attack surface for email bombing is the same in both fraud and harassment contexts, targeting cognitive overload.
First reported: 18.02.2026 22:561 source, 1 articleShow sources
- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56
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Threat intelligence often categorizes adversaries into types like cybercriminals, nation-states, and harassers, but human vulnerabilities do not respect these categories.
First reported: 18.02.2026 22:561 source, 1 articleShow sources
- Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot — www.darkreading.com — 18.02.2026 22:56