BEC attacks rose 72 percent in 2022 with smaller businesses in the firing line
Business Email Compromise attacks increased dramatically last year with a 72 percent rise year-on-year over 2021.
The 2023 Email Security Threat Report from Armorblox shows high volumes of language-based and socially engineered attacks targeting organizations of all sizes and across industries.
Microsoft is bringing integrated MFA to mobile Outlook and widening the availability of the new Outlook for Windows app
A couple of recent entries on the Microsoft 365 roadmap shed light on what is in store for Outlook. Over the coming weeks, Microsoft has big plans for both the mobile and desktop versions of its email client.
Starting this month, Outlook security is being boosted thanks to the arrival of built-in multi-factor authentication (MFA). And next month, a larger number of Windows users will have access to a preview version of a completely new Outlook app.
93 percent of organizations suffer business email compromise attacks
The threat of business email compromise (BEC) is growing year on year and is projected to be twice as high as the threat of phishing in general.
According to a new report from cloud email security platform IRONSCALES, over 93 percent of organizations have experienced one or more of the BEC attack variants in the previous 12 months, with 62 percent facing three or more attack variants.
Microsoft says it has resolved Outlook email filter outage that resulted in a deluge of spam
Users of Microsoft's Outlook.com have been flooded with spam and phishing emails over a period of 12 hours. It seems that the message filters for the email service suffered an outage, resulting inboxes being overwhelmed with junk mail.
While Microsoft says that the issue has now been addressed, the company has provided very little in the way of explanation for what happened.
HTML smuggling -- the latest way to to deliver malware
Since Microsoft began the default blocking of macros in documents sent over the internet there's been an increase in the use of HTML files to deliver malware.
Research by Trustwave Spiderlabs reveals a rise in so called 'HTML smuggling' using HTML5 attributes that can work offline by storing a binary in an immutable blob of data within JavaScript code. The embedded payload then gets decoded into a file object when opened via a web browser.
Three-quarters of organizations experience successful email-borne attacks
New research released today by Barracuda shows 75 percent of organizations surveyed have experienced a successful email-borne attack in the last 12 months.
What's more the study, carried out by Vanson Bourne, finds recovering from an email-borne security attack costs victims more than $1 million on average and 69 percent of those hit by ransomware say the attack started with an email.
New security tools aim to protect enterprises from phishing attacks
A new set of zero trust email security solutions from Cloudflare are aimed at protecting employees from multichannel phishing attacks, preventing sensitive data from being exfiltrated via email, and helping businesses speed up and simplify deployments,
Compatible with any email provider, the protection is integrated into Cloudflare's platform, helping to secure all of an organization's applications and data.
Email is convenient but a letter might be better
If you're in the UK you might not have seen a letter for a while due to the postal workers' strike, but new research reveals that 62 percent of consumers are more likely to open a letter than an email.
The study, from mail solutions company Quadient, of 2,000 UK consumers shows 71 percent of respondents expect companies, such as banks or lawyers, to send important documents, like contracts or mortgage or pension statements, through the post rather than over email.
Health workers kept from patient care by tech
An overwhelming 99 percent of healthcare professionals want to be free to focus on patient care, but an abundance of technology is taking time and energy away from their core tasks.
This startling statistic is from a new study by Zivver which interviewed over 6,000 employees across the US and Europe, more than 400 of them in healthcare organizations, about their digital communications and workplace productivity.
Cyberattacks cost enterprises $1,200 per employee per year
Organizations are paying $1,197 per employee each year to address successful cyber incidents across email services, cloud collaboration apps or services, and web browsers.
This means that a 500-employee company spends on average $600,000 an year, according to a new survey for Perception Point, carried out by Osterman Research.
Email is the top vector for cyberattacks
Hot on the heels of a report showing that 40 percent of business emails have unwelcome content, comes another report revealing that email is now the top way of delivering cyberattacks.
The report from Tessian shows that 94 percent of organizations experienced a spear phishing or impersonation attack, and 92 percent suffered ransomware attacks over email this year.
Four out of 10 work emails are unwanted
Analysis of over 25 billion emails from Hornetsecurity reveals that 40.5 percent of work emails are unwanted.
We're tempted to say, "only four out of 10?" but it all depends how you define unwanted. The report looks specifically at the use of email to deliver malicious payloads -- so those emails from your boss that you'd rather not receive don't count!
Phishing volumes increase over 30 percent with well-known brands as favorite targets
The latest report from email security and threat detection company Vade shows the volume of phishing emails up 31 percent in the last quarter compared to Q2.
Volumes peaked in July (79.2 million), dipping in August (57.5 million), and rebounding in September (67.2 million). If this pace continues through Q4, phishing volumes in the second half of 2022 are set to exceed those reached in the first half (315 million).
Why cloud fax is better for secure data exchange than email
The constantly-evolving email encryption landscape is a tell-tale clue as to email’s vulnerability. Email service providers and encryption software makers must continually up their game because they know organizations use email to transmit their most sensitive content -- a fact that makes a valuable high-priority target for cybercriminals.
Sending a document via email is like writing it on the back of a postcard and popping it into the mailbox, for it to then be read by every single person who handles it on its journey to its destination. When you click "send" on an email it travels through firewalls, ISPs, servers, virus checkers and even data harvesting bots. It is stored, saved, copied and forwarded multiple times without any form of encryption. What this means is that email can very easily be compromised and the important data contained within it can be read and downloaded by unscrupulous third parties.
Less than five percent of Fortune 500 companies are using the latest email standards
Phishing is one of the most common methods of launching a cyberattack, yet new research from Red Sift shows that only a small percentage of publicly traded companies have fully adopted the latest email standards that could protect them and their customers.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) and BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) help prevent spoofing and allow businesses to display their logo on authenticated emails.
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