Financially motivated social engineering attacks, such as business email compromises, are on the rise. According to the 2020 FBI Internet Crime Report, business email compromises accounted for one-third of reported financial losses at a cost of $1.8 billion. These attacks can be much more difficult to detect than malware since they rely on more subtle methods, such as domain name spoofing while taking advantage of the weakest link—human error.
Email security needs to address file-based malware and zero-day attacks, phishing and malicious URLs, and business email compromise. Mitigating SPAM can also improve security by minimizing distractions. Certain compliance regulations and security frameworks may also require data loss prevention (DLP) to protect privacy and other confidential information.
The Challenge of Email Threats
Traditionally emails are an essential form of business communication with customers and with partners. Research reveals that the amount of new malware is ever-increasing. In 2021 the number of total malware is more than 1 billion, and over 94% of that is delivered via business email.
- Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and taking advantage of human error as the weakest link. Still, security departments rely on user awareness training and most of the users are not IT security experts. Thus, these victims generate continuous security incidents for IT departments to manage and mitigate damage. Impersonation and account takeover targeted attacks are continuously growing.
- Zero-day malware attacks are an increasingly common form of cyberattacks. Links and attachments in the emails that appear safe can contain malware that replicates and spreads across the network. The purpose-built sandbox solutions are expensive and slow, and as a result, do not meet the essential business requirements.
- The traditional email security approach is not working anymore because advanced threats can bypass legacy security gateway products. According to OPSWAT research, an email gateway with one single antivirus engine may not provide adequate protection for email security because different anti-malware vendors have relatively long reaction times to identify malware outbreaks.
- Several industry regulations impose data security requirements on companies, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI, GLBA, and FINRA. As an example, every company must keep customer and employee records safe according to EU data protection regulations. While many companies continue to use email to exchange confidential data, this is strongly discouraged. Emails can be intercepted, consequentially exposing confidential information within those emails.
How OPSWAT Can Help
OPSWAT addresses all cybersecurity threats on emails and offers advanced threat prevention, while significantly decreasing the outbreak detection time of malware (to virtually zero). It neutralizes attachments before they are delivered to prevent zero-day attacks, as well as uses the best-of-breed anti-spam and anti-phishing engines to prevent spam outbreaks and phishing attacks.
For more information, please download our Best practices for email security and critical infrastructure protection white paper or contact one of our cybersecurity experts.
