The number of phishing attacks increased 65% worldwide last year. However, while resiliency against phishing attacks is improving throughout major industries, including financial services, consumer scams in the workplace are growing.

Those are findings contained in Leesburg, Va.-based PhishMe's "Enterprise Phishing Resiliency and Defense Report, 2017," which examined controlled phishing activity and susceptibility at global organizations across 23 industries services, with 7 of 8 industries seeing resiliency harden. Financial industry showed a 12.2 susceptibility rate and a 31.7 reporter rate.

"For hackers, phishing is easy. And profitable. The average phishing attack costs a mid-sized company $1.6 million," the report noted. The research added, for many years, organizations have invested in technology to keep them safe from malicious emails. Yet ransomware, CEO fraud/business email compromise, and breaches stemming from phishing emails inflict a heavy toll. According to the FBI, BEC alone cost businesses worldwide over $5 billion from 2013 to 2016.