Warning — Email Cyber Attacks on the Rise

The cyber insurance provider, At-Bay said its statistics show cyber email attack claims rising 24% in 2023. Though the company doesn’t have statistics, it appears email attacks are growing even higher this year.

Larger companies are the most vulnerable. Companies with $100 million in revenue saw three-times as many attacks as firms with incomes of $25 million or less.

Adam Tyra is the general manager of Security Services for At-Bay. He said the three most targeted businesses for email crime in 2023 and the first half of 2024 are finance companies, law firms and manufacturers.

“Everyone has email, and everyone is susceptible to attacks that leverage it,” Tyra said. “While much of the security product market remains fixated on identifying and blocking ransomware, attackers are increasingly avoiding sophisticated security tools by turning victims’ own email systems against them.

Tyra said in some cases email attack got the attackers a payday of $5 million or more.

Here are some other items from the At-Bay report:

• Financial fraud is the most common in email attacks
• 61% of claims in 2023 were financial fraud
• In 2024 it got worse and the number climbed to 72%
• The average amount of money stolen in an email fraud attack is $219,000
• In the most severe attacks, the amount went as high as $5 million
• Real estate fraud cases saw the most funds stolen and averaged $434,000
• Attackers aren’t always after cash, 4.5% redirected goods being shipped

 “Businesses need to get much better at securing their email systems and at identifying emails that aren’t legitimate,” Tyra said. “Fraud detection performance of email solutions and email security tools varies widely. Some currently available solutions simply don’t stand up against the fraud tactics that criminals are using today and others need to be continuously tuned and managed to remain effective.”

There is a difference in which customer experienced the most attacks. Google Workspace users saw 54% fewer incidents on average compared to Microsoft 365. It had 45% more claims than the overall average for Google Workspace.

Workspace customers had three times fewer claims than Microsoft 365.

Source link: PropertyCasualty360.com — https://bit.ly/4fB49VE