Tag: targeted email attack

Security Defenses are Not Adequate

We have just completed an extensive survey of security and compliance professionals in mid-sized and large organizations, asking about the current state of their cyber security defenses. We will soon be publishing a white paper discussing the results. Here’s a bit of what we found:

  • Fifty-five to 58 percent of organizations admitted that they are not fully protected against security threats like payment scams, spear phishing attacks and email spoofing.
  • Four of the top five concerns that security and compliance professionals have in the context of their organizations’ cyber security are focused on email-related threats.
  • Sixty-five percent of security and compliance professionals admitted that their organization has suffered a successful attack and/or data breach during the past 12 months, with the most common being a phishing attack successfully infecting systems on their network with malware (28 percent), and a targeted email attack launched from a compromised account successfully infecting an endpoint with malware (25 percent).
  • Corporate executives represent 16 percent of the attack surface in the typical mid-sized and large organization, despite the fact that they account for only two percent of the total number of employees.
  • Forty-two percent of those surveyed told us that their anti-ransomware defenses are either not improving the catch rate for ransomware attempts over time or the catch rate is actually going down.
  • Only 28 percent of those surveyed believe that their end-user training regimen focused on web surfing best practices is “very good” or “excellent”; only 39 percent believe that their user training for detecting and addressing phishing and other unwanted emails is this good.
  • The average cyber security budget will increase by 7.4 percent in 2018 compared to last year; 67 percent of organizations are increasing their budget and only two percent are decreasing it.

Please let us know if you’d like an advance copy of the white paper.

Here are some upcoming security conferences that should be on your radar:

  • InfoSecWorld, Lake Buena Vista, Florida (March 19-21)
  • Black Hat Asia, Singapore (March 20-23)
  • RSA Conference, San Francisco, California (April 16-20)