Over 1.5 million malicious emails have evaded secure email gateways in 2023, representing a 37% and 310% growth over 2022 and 2021, respectively, reports SiliconAngle.
Most malicious emails bypassing SEGs were targeted at the healthcare and finance sectors, which experienced 84.5% and 118% growth, respectively, compared with 2022, according to a report from Cofense, which already observed a more than twofold increase in SEG-evading emails for the first two months of 2024. Moreover, most data breaches last year were facilitated by phishing attacks against employees, with researchers also noting the increasing prevalence of voice phishing, QR code phishing, brand impersonation attacks, and SMS phishing incidents circumventing SEGs last year. "..[I]t's evident that the email-based attack vector is evolving at an unprecedented pace going into 2024. The data we present in this report speaks directly about the escalating sophistication of cyber threats, which demand a different approach to effective email security," said Cofense CEO David Van Allen.
Most malicious emails bypassing SEGs were targeted at the healthcare and finance sectors, which experienced 84.5% and 118% growth, respectively, compared with 2022, according to a report from Cofense, which already observed a more than twofold increase in SEG-evading emails for the first two months of 2024. Moreover, most data breaches last year were facilitated by phishing attacks against employees, with researchers also noting the increasing prevalence of voice phishing, QR code phishing, brand impersonation attacks, and SMS phishing incidents circumventing SEGs last year. "..[I]t's evident that the email-based attack vector is evolving at an unprecedented pace going into 2024. The data we present in this report speaks directly about the escalating sophistication of cyber threats, which demand a different approach to effective email security," said Cofense CEO David Van Allen.
