New data shows the most prevalent and obvious path into an organization – email – continues to be exploited by a growing number of cybercriminals.
Email is one of those technologies that doesn’t seem willing to be replaced by collaborative tools that connect individuals and organizations – in many cases – in far more productive ways.
And because of this, cybercriminals continue to leverage email to gain access to users.
According to Acronis’ Cyberthreats Report H1 2024, organizations experienced a 47% increase in email attacks in the first half of this year, with 40% of users facing at least one attack. The total number of attacks represents a 239% increase over the first half of 2023.
Analysis of email-based attacks this year shows that phishing dominates, representing 75% of all attacks (with malware at 20%, BEC at 4%, and advanced attacks at just 1%). Malicious URLs were the #1 attack vehicle used in phishing attacks, with 26% of users encountering these kinds of phishing attempts.
In short, phishing emails aren’t going anywhere.
I do like how Acronis put one of their recommendations on how to prevent such attacks from succeeding: “prepare for phishing attempts.” I like it because it conveys a tone of “it’s going to happen, so deal with it.”
One of the key ways is to leverage new school security awareness training to ensure each of your users is up to date on why they need to remain vigilant when interacting with email and the web.
KnowBe4 empowers your workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Over 65,000 organizations worldwide trust the KnowBe4 platform to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk.
