Business Email Cyber Attacks Increasing at an Alarming Rate

Email is the largest single attack vector available and this has resulted in business email cyber attacks increasing at an alarming rate.

According to a recent report, email cyber attacks account up to 269% from last quarter.  There has been a massive spike in emails containing dangerous file types, malware attachments, and spam in target inboxes.

The email cyber security report reviewed more than 260 million emails and the statistics are alarming:

• Over 480,000 users were affected by cyber threats
• Approximately 28.8 million were spam
• Over 28,808 contained malware attachments
• Approximately 28,726 contained dangerous file types
• Over 60,000 of these messages contained phishing email scams

As there is an increases in email cyber attacks, they are affecting business productivity, business profitability, and affecting the bottom line for all organizations.  This includes a wide variety of cyberattacks including phishing, impersonation, insider threats, and much more.

Here are some more alarming statistics from the cyberattack on email report:

• Negative business impact has increased to 61% compared to 58% a year ago.
• 1 in 10 stakeholders feel their organization will inevitably suffer a business impact from an email-borne attack.
• Over 67% reported seeing impersonation cyberattacks increase.
• Over 73% of impersonation attack victims experienced a loss from the attack.
• Approximately 71% were hit by a cyberattack where malicious activity had spread from across users

There are many tools out there, but human error is one of the largest risks to organizations.  Many research documents have shown that human error ranks even higher for cyber risk to an organization than software flaws and vulnerabilities resulting in over 90% of breaches.

In a recent test, a phishing simulation was conducted on 6,500 employees that do have security awareness training. Over 500 of the employees clicked on the phishing email link in under a second.

Here are seven things to consider for email security in your organization:

1. Don’t play defense, play offense. Over 61% of respondents believe they will suffer a negative business impact from an email cyberattacks.
2. Security breaches not only slow you down, they have a direct impact to your business. Organizations hit by ransomware average three days of downtime including loss of productivity and profitability.
3. Impersonation cyberattacks are increasing. Approximately 85% of respondents experienced an impersonation attack or phishing cyberattack as well as reporting a huge increase.
4. Internal cyber threats can cause a chain reaction. Over 71% of organizations saw malicious activity spread from one infected user to other employees, an increase over last year’s 64%.
5. Phishing cyberattacks are here to stay. Approximately 94% of respondents experienced a phishing attack in the previous 12 months.
6. Ransomware is increasing at an alarming rate. Over 53% of organizations have been hit by a ransomware attack that directly impacted their business resulting in a 27% increase from 2019.
7. Data loss is the biggest concern. Approximately 73% of organizations hit by ransomware experienced a direct loss including data, financial, or loss of customers.

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