Employees overestimate the efficacy of their workplace’s email security strategy

▤ Summary

Compared to last year’s report, which identified a perception gap between email security and regular white-collar professionals, GreatHorn’s new data shows that gap still exists as employees with limited or no involvement in email security are three times more likely to say the only email-based attacks they receive in their inbox is spam. “Our latest research shows that employees – particularly non-technical professionals – overestimate the efficacy of their workplace’s email security strategy,” GreatHorn CEO Kevin O’Brien said. “There is an alarming sense of complacency at enterprises at the same time that cybercriminals have increased the volume and sophistication of their email attacks. Businesses must protect themselves at every point of the email lifecycle, including post-delivery, to adequately protect themselves from modern spear phishing and social engineering attempts.” GreatHorn found that 24.4% of survey respondents indicated that malicious email messages, including impersonations, wire transfer requests, W2 requests, payload attacks/malware, business services spoofing, and credential theft attempts, reach their inbox every day, with an additional 25.4% that report seeing attacks at least weekly. This marked difference in perception speaks to the training and awareness gap that was first highlighted in last year’s report.

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