Phishing Attacks Continue to Threaten Email Security

First the bad news, 94% of Mimecast survey respondents fell victim to phishing attacks in 2018. Now the really bad news, two-thirds experienced a direct financial, customer or data loss.

Lexington, Mass.-based cybersecurity provider Mimecast in its “State of Email Security” report found cybercriminals continue to use email as a primary vehicle to steal data and deliver advanced threats. The research also provided insights and trends around what is affecting organizations the most and how they can improve their overall security posture.

The research learned social engineering attacks are a rising concern for organizations because they are often among the most difficult to control. Most notably, the report found that impersonation attacks increased 67% in comparison to the results in last year’s report – with 73% of those organizations affected by impersonation attacks having experienced direct damage, specifically customer departures (28%), financial damage (29%) and data loss (40%).

Phishing attacks were the most prominent type of cyberattack, with 94% of respondents having experienced phishing and spear phishing attacks in the previous 12 months, and 55% cited seeing an increase in phishing attacks over the same time period.

The SOES report discovered not only are email-based attacks on the rise, but they are affecting how confident people are in their organization’s cybersecurity defenses, and ultimately the ability to do their jobs.

“Once data falls into the wrong hands, you really can’t regain what’s been lost or repair the damage. Organizations also have a fiduciary responsibility to inform customers, which only compounds the issue,” the SOES report proclaimed.

According to the study, 61% believe it is likely or inevitable their organization will suffer a negative business impact from an email-borne attack this year. The report also found that business-disrupting ransomware attacks are up 26% in comparison to last year. Forty-nine percent of respondents noted having downtime for two to three days, whereas 31% experienced downtime for four to five days.

“Email security systems are the frontline defense for most of attacks. Yet, just having and providing data on these attacks is not what creates value for most respondents,” Josh Douglas, vice president of threat intelligence a Mimecast, said. “Survey results indicate that vendors need to be able to provide actionable intelligence out of the mass of data they collect, and not just focus on indicators of compromise which would only address past problems.”

Douglas added the Mimecast Threat Analysis Center identified financial, manufacturing, professional services, science/technology and transportation as the top five industries affected by impersonation attacks which closely aligned with the SOES report’s findings. “Understanding these key pain points helps organizations build a more comprehensive cyber-resilience plan.”

Key takeaways from the 2019 SOES report, which surveyed 1,025 global IT-decision makers about their cybersecurity pain points included:

• Expect more incidents like the recent Baltimore ransomware attack. ransomware attacks directly affected more than half of organizations. (double last year’s 27% figure).
• Data breach costs are rapidly rising. Organizations are paying upwards of $4 million on average, not including their data and customer losses.
• Employees’ bad habits are as contagious (and lethal) as the flu. Seventy-one percent of respondents experienced an attack resulting from malicious activity spread from one infected user to other employees.
• No one has learned their lesson. Despite the increase in threats, as well as the implementation of fine-heavy regulations like the EU’s he General Data Protection Regulation, 46% of stakeholder organizations do not have a cyber resilience strategy in place.

Survey participants, interviewed from December 2018 through February 2019, came from the U.S., UK, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, South Africa and United Arab Emirates.