Phishing Off the Company Pier
Phishing attacks are rising at an alarming rate for companies across the globe. A respected cybersecurity company recently released the following statistics regarding this increase:
Email-based corporate credential phishing attacks quadrupled vs. the previous quarter.
99% of the most highly targeted email addresses in the quarter didn’t rank as such in the previous report, which suggests attackers are constantly shifting targets.
In 2018, reports of credential compromise rose 70% over 2017, and they’ve soared 280% since 2016.
In addition, we are seeing an increase in the sophistication of these attacks which is leading to a higher “success rate”. This increase in effectiveness is taking its toll on businesses. A leading cybersecurity insurance company indicated that small businesses estimated their average cost for incidents in the last 12 months to be just under $35,000. Thus, when viewing emails, we must remain vigilant when:
opening attachments
clicking on embedded links
clicking on embedded pictures, or
entering our credentials online.
Remember: When in doubt, don’t act on it. It’s simply not worth it.