Impersonation attacks increased almost 70 per cent as against a rise of 67 per cent compared to the results in last year’s State of Email Security report from Mimecast, a leading email and data security company.

Seventy-three per cent of those organizations impacted by impersonation attacks experienced a direct loss, specifically loss of customers (28 per cent), financial loss (29 per cent) and data loss (40 per cent), the report said, noting that social engineering attacks are a rising concern for organizations because they’re often one of the most difficult to control.

Phishing attacks were the most prominent type of cyberattack, with 94 per cent of respondents having experienced phishing and spear phishing attacks in the previous 12 months, and 55 per cent cited seeing an increase in phishing attacks over the same time period.

Not only are email-based attacks on the rise, but they’re affecting how confident people are in their organization’s cybersecurity defences – and ultimately the ability to do their jobs.

According to the report, 61 per cent believe it is likely or inevitable their organization will suffer a negative business impact from an email-borne attack this year. The report also found that business-disrupting ransomware attacks are up 26 per cent in comparison to last year. Forty-nine per cent of respondents noted having downtime for two to three days, whereas 31 per cent experienced downtime for four to five days.

“Email security systems are the frontline defence for most of attacks. Yet, just having and providing data on these attacks is not what creates value for most respondents,” said Josh Douglas, vice president of threat intelligence at Mimecast.

“Survey results indicate that vendors need to be able to provide actionable intelligence out of the mass of data they collect, and not just focus on indicators of compromise which would only address past problems.

“The Mimecast Threat Analysis Center was also able to identify the top 5 industries being impacted by impersonation attacks which closely aligned with the findings in the report. Financial, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Science/Technology as well as Transportation Industries are top targets. Understanding these key pain points helps organizations build a more comprehensive cyber resilience plan,” Douglas added. – TradeArabia News Service