Email security remained top of mind for cybersecurity professionals in 2023 as over nine in ten cyber decision-makers had to deal with a phishing attack, according to email security provider Egress.
This is up 2% from the previous year, Egress' Email Security Risk Report 2024 found.
The top three phishing techniques used throughout 2023 were malicious URLs, malware or ransomware attachments and attacks sent from compromised accounts.
Phishing threat actors became more efficient, with 96% of targeted organizations negatively impacted by these attacks, compared with 86% during the previous year.
58% of organizations suffered account takeovers in 2023, of which 79% came from credentials harvested through phishing.
The report also shows that cybersecurity leaders are aware that phishing is a serious concern for their businesses.
A staggering 95% of them said they are stressed about email security.
Many cybersecurity leaders question how efficient their cybersecurity defenses against email-based attacks are.
Of those who use a secure email gateway, 91% expressed frustration with it and 87% are considering replacing their SEG or have already done so.
This frustration is sometimes passed on to staff, with cybersecurity leaders taking a tough stance on employees.
The study has found that among employees who fell for a phishing attack, 51% were disciplined, 39% were fired, and 27% voluntarily left their jobs.
This is despite a lack of efficient training provided to staff, the report highlighted.
Overall, 91% of cybersecurity leaders have doubts about the effectiveness of traditional training.
In most cases, training is not tailored to the workforce, with only 19% of organizations delivering security awareness training that reflects on the department or team that employees work in.
Instead, training is frequently seen as a checkbox exercise - for compliance purposes only in 88% of cases.
The survey data for this report was compiled from 500 cybersecurity leaders, including CISOs and CIOs, from the US, UK, and Australia, and working in the financial services, legal, healthcare, and government or charitable sectors.
All respondents used Microsoft 365 as their operating system and were responsible for email security.
The survey data was supplemented by platform data generated by Egress Defend and Egress Prevent.
This Cyber News was published on www.infosecurity-magazine.com. Publication date: Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:55:04 +0000