As in 2016, we tracked subject lines in UCE mentioning the last names of candidates in the 2020 elections. Illicit email was identified using proprietary Proofpoint algorithms and differentiated from legitimate bulk email. This year, we began analyzing subject lines much sooner in the primary season, and present data on candidates still in the race through February 29 (including Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race that day). As the Democratic field narrows, future analyses will continue to focus on active candidates.
Year-to-date overall UCE volumes mentioning individual candidates suggests that Donald Trump not only has the incumbent’s advantage but also maintains the strongest brand as he did in 2016. While we did not conduct a complete sentiment analysis of subject lines, anecdotal examination suggests that subjects included a mix of both positive and negative language for all candidates. Polarizing brands simply give illicit email actors more fodder for subject lines in emails that may lead to anything from affiliate spam landing pages unrelated to the presidential campaign to attack or misinformation sites.
As shown in Figure 1, Trump-related UCE continues to dominate, with almost three times the volume of the Democratic front-runners combined. These identified front-runners include Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren; both Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out of the race after the closing date of this analysis.
Read more (proofpoint)
Year-to-date overall UCE volumes mentioning individual candidates suggests that Donald Trump not only has the incumbent’s advantage but also maintains the strongest brand as he did in 2016. While we did not conduct a complete sentiment analysis of subject lines, anecdotal examination suggests that subjects included a mix of both positive and negative language for all candidates. Polarizing brands simply give illicit email actors more fodder for subject lines in emails that may lead to anything from affiliate spam landing pages unrelated to the presidential campaign to attack or misinformation sites.
As shown in Figure 1, Trump-related UCE continues to dominate, with almost three times the volume of the Democratic front-runners combined. These identified front-runners include Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren; both Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out of the race after the closing date of this analysis.
Read more (proofpoint)
