Email remains a prime attack method for cyber criminals. That is according to a survey by Vanson Bourne for product company Cloudmark. Some 90 percent of survey respondents whose organisation experienced a spear phishing attack in the past year said that the attacks targeted staff email. The cloud firm says spear phishing attacks have been associated with multiple high-profile data breaches, including suffered by Target, Sony and the Pentagon. Spear phishing attacks can yield valuable data such as user credentials to corporate or personal accounts.
IT professionals are also increasingly concerned about spear phishing attacks. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of IT decision makers reported that spear phishing currently poses a significant threat to their organisation.
The cloud firm says spear phishing attacks have been associated with multiple high-profile data breaches, including suffered by Target, Sony and the Pentagon. Spear phishing attacks can yield valuable data such as user credentials to corporate or personal accounts, which attackers can leverage to gain additional insight into the target organisation or individual, and to launch additional attacks that seek access to additional systems and services. According to Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report, nearly 50 percent of victims open phishing emails and click on the link within the first hour of receiving them.
George Riedel, CEO of Cloudmark said: “With the wealth of information about individuals and organisations now available online, cybercriminals can easily craft targeted attacks to gain access to valuable personal and financial information. Spear phishing has emerged as one of the largest threats facing enterprises today.
“Based on our conversations with customers, partners and enterprise IT decision makers, it is glaringly apparent that organisations across industries are struggling to combat spear phishing threats with existing solutions – creating a real need for a new technology-based approach. We are committed to helping these organisations identify and detect threats before they compromise their networks, and we have already begun working with several enterprises around the world to deploy Cloudmark Trident to address this growing threat.”
