Threat Intelligence Has a Human-Shaped Blind Spot

Dark Reading

by Dr. Megan Squire

February 18, 2026

AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary

Threat intelligence often overlooks a critical blind spot: human vulnerabilities. The author shares an experience with email bombing, where perpetrators flooded their inbox to hide fraudulent messages. This technique, commonly used for harassment, also works for fraud by exploiting cognitive overload—our limited capacity to process large amounts of information. Both harassment and fraud exploit the same human weaknesses, yet threat intelligence approaches often silo these issues, treating them as unrelated phenomena despite their shared roots in psychological manipulation. The article highlights how trust and safety teams focus on coordinated harassment, hate speech, and brigading, while fraud and security teams tackle business email compromise, credential stuffing, and malware campaigns. These groups operate separately, using different terminology and attending different conferences, despite facing similar challenges. This lack of communication leaves gaps in understanding how techniques from one area can be weaponized in another. For instance, mass reporting campaigns on platforms aim to overwhelm moderation systems, while fraud schemes use saturation tactics to bury critical information. The psychological impact is identical: overwhelming the target until they disengage or fail to notice key details. This overlap underscores the need for collaboration between threat intelligence communities to recognize and address these shared vulnerabilities effectively. Understanding this interconnectedness matters because it allows organizations to anticipate and defend against a broader range of attacks. By bridging the gap between harassment prevention and fraud detection, teams can develop more comprehensive strategies to protect users from exploitation. This shift in perspective is crucial for building robust defenses against sophisticated adversaries who exploit human psychology across diverse threat landscapes.

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Originally published on Dark Reading on 2/18/2026