Outgoing emails constitute the most widespread cause of enterprise data breaches. With the pandemic forcing people to work from home, the amount of emails sent has increased, making the threat even more pronounced.
This comes from a new report by the security firm Egress, which says that about 93% of businesses have suffered data breaches via outbound emails in the last 12 months.
The report is based on a poll of more than 530 IT security managers in the UK and the US. The firm states in the report that an email data breach happens every 12 working hours; in the context of 254 working days in a year.
The pandemic is not helping
The remote working boom has made it even easier to get hacked. About 94% of the respondents said that email traffic is up and 70% believe that remote working has increased their vulnerability to hacking.
The method of targeting specific individuals in an organization is called spear-phishing and is by far the most common method used in 80% of exploits.
However, it is not the only danger that these workers face. Emails sent to the wrong person and incorrectly attached files can lead to breaches.
New problems need new solutions
The problem will only get worse, according to Tony Pepper, who is the CEO at Egress. He asserts that the conditions under which we are working now create the perfect ground for attacks from spear-phishing and other email-related campaigns.
He continues to say that the traditional tools designed to protect your email are not sufficient in the face of new methods.
He concludes that organizations need to up their game and involve intelligent technology like machine learning that can spot user errors and prevent responses to spear-phishing emails, among other preventable mistakes.