Organizations in the education sector and local and state government are most at risk from email threats, according to a new report.
The report, published by IT security firm Cyren, also found that phishing remains the dominant form of attack against all industries.
Based on data gathered from nearly 45,000 incidents, researchers found that the education sector received over five threats per thousand emails received. State and local government bodies received just over two threats per thousand emails received, nearly double the amount received by the next most targeted industry, software.
The report also looked at the number of attacks per 100 users across a wide range of industries. It found that there were nearly 400 per 100 users in education compared to just over 150 in the construction industry.
Researchers said there was a surprisingly low rate for manufacturing, especially when compared to the construction industry, which is closely related.
“We observed 20 confirmed threats per 100 users in the manufacturing vertical. Without solid detection and automated incident response, a manufacturer with 100 Office 365 users would spend at least 16 hours manually investigating and remediating emails,” they added.
In a blog post, security researchers found that the data supported a widely held theory that phishing is a precursor to more damaging attacks such as business email compromise (BEC) and ransomware.
The report looked at phishing compared with malware and BEC attacks across four industries. Phishing remained the dominant threat in healthcare (76%), finance and insurance (76%), manufacturing (85%), and real estate (93%).
In healthcare, BEC attacks made up the remaining 24%. Researchers said that robust malware detection capabilities in the healthcare industry explains the high rate of BEC attempts.
RELATED RESOURCE
2021 state of email security report: Ransomware on the rise
Securing the enterprise in the COVID world
“Attackers understand that they can’t easily slip malware past automated defenses, so they have shifted to social engineering tactics,” said researchers.
Researchers said that when it comes to solving the email threat problem, user education is an important component, but several organizations have “over-rotated” on the idea that users are responsible for keeping sophisticated email threats at bay.
“The predominant trend is to use an email hygiene technology such as Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to catch 80% of threats, deploy a specialized add-on to catch and contain zero-day phishing and most BEC attempts, enable employees to perform initial analysis on the small percentage of emails that are classified as suspicious (rather than malicious or clean), and automate incident response workflows to save time and reduce exposure,” added researchers.
-
RSAC Conference 2025: The front line of cyber innovationITPro Podcast Ransomware, quantum computing, and an unsurprising focus on AI were highlights of this year's event
-
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks we're burying our heads in the sand on AI job lossesNews With AI set to hit entry-level jobs especially, some industry execs say clear warning signs are being ignored
-
The FBI says hackers are using AI voice clones to impersonate US government officialsNews The campaign uses AI voice generation to send messages pretending to be from high-ranking figures
-
Employee phishing training is working – but don’t get complacentNews Educating staff on how to avoid phishing attacks can cut the rate by 80%
-
Russian hackers tried to lure diplomats with wine tasting – sound familiar? It’s an update to a previous campaign by the notorious Midnight Blizzard groupNews The Midnight Blizzard threat group has been targeting European diplomats with malicious emails offering an invite to wine tasting events, according to Check Point.
-
This hacker group is posing as IT helpdesk workers to target enterprises – and researchers warn its social engineering techniques are exceptionally hard to spotNews The Luna Moth hacker group is ramping up attacks on firms across a range of industries with its 'callback phishing' campaign, according to security researchers.
-
Hackers are using Zoom’s remote control feature to infect devices with malwareNews Security experts have issued an alert over a new social engineering campaign using Zoom’s remote control features to take over victim devices.
-
State-sponsored cyber groups are flocking to the 'ClickFix' social engineering techniqueNews State-sponsored hackers from North Korea, Iran, and Russia are exploiting the ‘ClickFix’ social engineering technique for the first time – and to great success.
-
Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt’s mailing list compromised in phishing attackTroy Hunt, the security blogger behind data-breach site Have I Been Pwned, has fallen victim to a phishing attack targeting his email subscriber list.
-
LinkedIn has become a prime hunting ground for cyber criminals – here’s what you need to knowNews Cyber criminals are flocking to LinkedIn to conduct social engineering campaigns, research shows.
