Email security or email protection is a sort of method to manage to secure email communication and accounts, and keep information safe within email against unauthorized access, loss, or compromise. (See our article, 10 Email Security Risks in 2020).
Email is the main means that often used by cybercriminals to deploy spam, malware, and phishing attacks, and over one-third of all security incidents start with phishing emails or malicious attachments sent to company employees over an email. Emails are still the weakest link in the security chain. So what are email security trends and challenges you need to know?
1. Account Takeover and Credential Theft Are On The Rise
Firstly, account takeover and credential theft are on the rise. These attack vectors are also troublesome to identify and stop.
GreatHorn team conducted a study to discover insights into the growth of new and emerging email security trends and new email attack vectors those affecting businesses. According to findings, phishing has become a dominant technique used in email attacks. “Nearly half of respondents (48.7%) report seeing impersonations of people such as colleagues or vendors. Meanwhile, 42.4% report seeing brand impersonations of companies such as Microsoft, Google, or Docusign in their inbox”. Also, the team has found out that “33.6% of IT professionals” have to “remediate email-based attacks every day”.
2. Payment Fraud Trend
Secondly, Payload attacks are on the rise. The payload is a sort of virus that infiltrates and causes destruction on existing systems by adding its own malicious code. In 2020, Payload attacks have been very popular among criminals. Moreover, it is one of the email security threats that many end-user fail to identify.
3. Ransomware Attacks Don’t Stop
As in 2019, Ransomware continues to arise. Many businesses had to deal with dealt with ransomware on their networks. In, 2020, half of the organizations were attacked by Ransomware. Ransomware still one of the biggest threats to email security.
4. Malicious Attachment Attacks on Human Resources Departments and Consulting Firms
Malicious attachments are also one of the means that criminals used and it is one of the email security threats in 2020. According to our 2020 Phishing Trends Report, i.e., criminals targeted Human Resources Departments and Consulting firms using malicious attachments. People working in these departments and sectors are having a high volume of emails including an attachment on a daily basis. Therefore, they are more vulnerable to malicious attachment attacks. Also, we have discovered that email vulnerability is closely related to the number of emails received on a daily basis, that is to say, people having a high volume of emails are more vulnerable to email-based attacks.
5. Misconfiguration Attacks
Security Misconfiguration is commonly interpreted as missing to perform the security checks for a server or web application or implementing the wrong security control. Web server s and applications that you have misconfigured or neglected may lead to cybercriminals to infiltrate into systems. Therefore, these attacks can be a serious problem for email security.
6. COVID-19-Related Email Security Issues
In 2020, COVID-19-related email attacks increased. Criminals benefited from fear and uncertainty of their targets, user phishing attacks to bypass email security tools, impersonating as trusted entities, and using spoofed and compromised accounts to trick their targets to steal sensitive data or install malware.
These attacks generally included the pandemic news such as COVID-19 testing opportunity and vaccines help or sometimes financial relief and incentive payments.
7. Email Security: How To Mitigate The Email Security Threats
a. Use Phishing Simulation Tools
A phishing simulation is a model of real action, designed for training purposes to resolve the issue, for instance, astronauts are trained using space flight simulation or the driver candidates evaluate themselves on a car simulation before going out to traffic, they can see the real risks as if they were driving a real car.
Phishing simulation is an excellent tool for email security or a cybersecurity awareness training program, especially fighting against phishing attacks. Furthermore, It is easy to deliver simulated phishing emails and customizable phishing templates to test employees. It is possible to administer pre-configured or customized phishing attack templates.
b. Conduct Email Security Gap Analysis
Many organizations believe that their email security infrastructure and their email security tools are well enough to protect them against email-based attacks. However, few regularly test their email security, since it is so difficult. However, it is important to test the tools that are responsible for your company’s email security. You can use Email Threat Simulator (ETS) to make an email gap analysis to quickly assess the effectiveness of your existing email security.
C. Respond to Email-Based Attacks Using Incident Responder
The loss from email attacks can be a disaster, with many incidents costing millions, harming the brand name, and damaging relations with clients. Therefore, it is important to have an incident response technology in place to fight against these threats on the inbox level.
d. Always Check your Vulnerability With Cyber Threat Intelligence Services
The Threat Intelligence scans the web, searching for signals and data that may represent a breach of your data security and a threat to your business. The constant vigilance afforded to you by the Threat Intelligence shortens the time between the potential data breach and defensive response, reducing the opportunity for fraudulent activity.
