Assess your business's email risks this Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

When it comes to email security, ignorance isn’t bliss. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an ideal opportunity to get up to date on top cyberthreats and key best practices to defend your business’s emails.

In today’s digital landscape, email remains an essential communication and marketing tool for businesses everywhere. But cybercriminals are clued into this and use email’s weaknesses to launch cyberattacks on organizations. These attacks continue to grow in numbers and sophistication.

Global losses from cybercrime are soaring and are anticipated to reach over $23 trillion globally each year by 2027.

This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s our mission to share knowledge about these threats and how modern organizations can shield their employees, partners, and all other stakeholders against them. To do this we’ve created the 2024 Cyberthreat Report: Exploring the state of email security & DMARC, a key resource to support you on your journey to protection.

This article summarizes some of the findings from the report. Download the full report to learn more.

Boosting cybersecurity awarness: The hiden dangers of unsecured email

We believe there’s a critical need for education and awareness about email threats businesses face today, which may go unnoticed or unconsidered.

Anti-spam, mail gateways and other traditional security measures may protect your organization against inbound email threats, they’re not enough to fully shield your business from email-based cyberattacks.

This is because cybercriminals can still use your organization’s domain to send harmful fraudulent emails to your internal and external stakeholders. To properly secure your business, you must ensure the protection of both inbound and outbound emails. We explore this in more detail later in the article.

The email threat

The rise of social media, instant messaging apps, and digital collaboration platforms may make you think that email is a bit outdated, but with an average of over 361 billion emails sent globally every day, it’s clear that it’s still a vital communication tool for many.

Like any digital communication channel, email is at risk of cybercriminal corruption. This vulnerability is highlighted in several key findings from our report.

Key findings

Read on to discover some of the leading cyberthreats currently affecting organizations.

Top threats to your business's email security in 2024

With the alarming amount of companies that reported email security incidents in 2023, it’s clear that no business, large or small, is safe from being targeted by cybercriminals.

Fueling the increase in companies’ cybersecurity concerns are expanding attack surfaces created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) and remote working, as well as a growing tech skills gap that prevents organizations from adapting fast enough to secure themselves.

Some of today’s top threats to your business’s email security include:

Phishing
Phishing hit a record high in 2023, with the Anti-Phishing Working Group observing almost five million phishing attacks. In a phishing attack, cybercriminals impersonate a trusted sender – like your business or staff – to trick email recipients into leaking valuable sensitive information like login credentials, financial data, or other personal information.In today’s digital landscape, phishing continues to be a top tactic for cybercrooks and is the entry point for various other attack types including ransomware and malware. As phishing attacks grow more sophisticated, they’re becoming harder to spot, even for tech-savvy users. In 2023, nearly 300 thousand people were duped by phishing attacks in the U.S. alone.
Generative AI
Have you heard of ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot? These are types of AI that use prompts to write copy and create images, videos, or other data using generative models – otherwise known as generative AI. Last year saw a significant increase in the severity and complexity of cyberattacks, driven by cybercriminals misusing these AI tools.Cyberattacks like this are set to increase, with 93% of security leaders expecting to face AI-driven attacks daily in 2024. AI use in businesses has almost doubled over the past year, yet cybersecurity isn’t keeping up – only 24% of generative AI applications are properly secured. This is a huge concern, as it leaves many organizations vulnerable to AI-driven attacks.
BEC
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is an advanced scam cybercriminals use to deceive a company’s employees, customers, or partners into sending them money or sensitive data. BEC has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years with cybercriminals doing extensive research to perfectly imitate internal communications, brand tone, and style.Within the last year, 70% of companies have been the targets of BEC attacks, and this growth is having a huge financial impact on companies of all sizes. In 2023, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) got almost 21 500 BEC complaints, which totaled losses reaching almost $3 billion.
Ransomware
In a ransomware attack, a cybercriminal takes systems or data hostage until a ransom is paid. These attacks can bring critical systems to a standstill and result in large payouts – although paying the ransom doesn’t guarantee that access will be reinstated.In 2023, ransomware attacks soared to a new high, marking the most activity seen globally and the biggest payouts since the COVID-19 pandemic. This threat shows no signs of slowing down, with an attack expected to take place every two seconds by 2031, costing global victims over $265 billion in damages. Ransomware has even been called ‘more brutal’ than ever in 2024.

Now that you know a bit more about some of the threats to your business’s email security, we’ll dive into some best practices for protection in the next section.

Download our free 2024 Cyberthreat Report to discover the full list of top threats as well as expert insights.

Securing your email: Best practices for business defense in 2024 and beyond

With cyberthreats constantly evolving, your business’s email security must do the same to provide visibility of and protect against these new threats as they arise. Taking proactive email security measures will help ensure that your business doesn’t become an attack victim.

Some of the best practices you can implement include:

Using strong passwords & MFA
Implement strong password policies along with multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure that only authorized users can access your business’s email accounts.
Educating & training users
Keep your staff’s cybersecurity awareness up to date to ensure they can identify phishing attacks and other malicious email threats. Hold regular training and send phishing email tests to get an idea of how aware your employees are.
Prioritizing email security
Implement global best practices in email authentication like Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), to help prevent brand spoofing and impersonation.

SPF: Checks that an email’s sender is who they say they are, and that they’re authorized to send email from a domain.
DKIM: Verifies that an email hasn’t been intercepted or tampered with during transit.
DMARC: Allows a domain owner to specify how email receivers should treat messages that claim to come from their domain but fail SPF and DKIM checks.

When configured correctly, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC prove that an email sender is legitimate and that the message hasn’t been compromised, ensuring that only emails that’ve passed authentication checks reach an inbox.

These are just a few of the best practices you can use to help shield your business and ensure its continuity. You can find out more by downloading the full 2024 Cyberthreat Report.

DMARC’s critical role in email protection

DMARC has been in the limelight in recent years, as experts have realized this global email authentication standard’s critical role in the fight against fraudulent emails. As noted previously in this article, while anti-spam measures help shield against incoming email threats, they don’t stop cybercriminals from compromising outbound emails. Using your business’s reputable name, these attackers can carry out malicious activities to get what they want.

The current challenge is that DMARC adoption is too slow, even with enterprises, governments, and regulators either strongly recommending or mandating its implementation. This leaves many businesses vulnerable to email-based cyberattacks.

To get the full scoop on the state of DMARC, get our free 2024 Cyberthreat Report.

A must-have on your journey to protection

As threats continue to rise and grow more sophisticated, it’s critical that you have visibility of the risks to your business and know how to address them. Our 2024 Cyberthreat Report is a must-have as you navigate the threat landscape and build up your organization’s defenses.

What you’ll learn:

Email usage & risks in modern businesses
Discover how organizations are using email in today’s digital world and see why it’s become a favorite cyberattack method.
Top email security threats & best practices
Get detailed insights on the top threats to your business’s email security in 2024, along with best practices for protecting against them.
DMARC’s vital part in business security
We explore DMARC’s current state, rising mandates for its implementation, and how it’s fast becoming a modern business must-have.

You’ll also get access to exclusive expert insights! For all this and more, download the full report today.