Around 33 percent of the e-mails reported as suspicious actually turn out to be a potential threat, as a study by F-Secure now shows. Phishing emails were the most common.
For a study, F-Secure security experts analyzed more than 200.000 emails that were reported as suspicious by employees in companies around the world in the first half of 2021. They come to the conclusion that around one in three of these emails actually posed a potential threat. In most cases, the phishing campaigns were designed to extract personal information from victims or to trick them into downloading malware.
Lots of suspicious emails per month
The investigation showed that each employee reported an average of 2,14 emails as a potential threat during the investigation period. In a company with 1000 employees, there were an average of 116 suspected cases per month. The most common reason for such a report were links, which were contained in around 60 percent of the mails. Other reasons to report an e-mail were incorrect or suspicious sender addresses, suspicious file attachments and spam.
Risk assessment through certain words and phrases
The security researchers also came to the conclusion that certain words and phrases in the emails indicate an increased risk, including "Warning", "Your funds has" and "Message is for a trusted". This points to a common denominator in many phishing campaigns: The victims' feelings are to be played with so that they are put on alert by an alleged danger and are therefore more willing to click on infected links and file attachments.
Employees develop a better and better sense of danger
In addition to the very specific results from the analyzes of the reported emails, the F-Secure study also shows that many companies have made progress on the subject of awareness. Employees seem to prefer to report one email too much rather than falling victim to a malicious email - in principle a perfectly legitimate approach. Overly cautious employees can also become a problem when the flood of reports hits an already overloaded IT department. However, companies should not draw the wrong conclusions from this and encourage employees to be less careful. On the contrary: it would make more sense to provide the IT department with better staff. In addition, the threat posed by fake e-mails continues to grow. A previous study showed that the average response rate to phishing attacks was around 20 percent. This could be further increased by an alarming formulation or the pretense of authority.
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About 8com The 8com Cyber Defense Center effectively protects the digital infrastructures of 8coms customers from cyber attacks. It includes security information and event management (SIEM), vulnerability management and professional penetration tests. It also offers the setup and integration of an Information Security Management System (ISMS) including certification according to current standards. Awareness measures, security training and incident response management round off the offer.