In the first half of 2018, two thirds of e-mail traffic was “untouched”. On the other hand, one in three violations resulted in dismissal. Two studies have led to this evaluation. The first is that of the Email Threat Report on a sample of over half a billion email messages. Two-thirds of this traffic is not clean, and one mail in 101 has malicious intent. Most of the attacks blocked during the scan (90%) were free of malicious viruses (malware), with phishing alone accounting for 81% of the emails blocked without malware. Therefore, phishing attacks and email scams that invite you to click on dangerous links are growing. And there are also stats on hackers' favorite days of the week, Monday and Wednesday being the most common days for malicious virus-based attacks.
Attacks without malware, on the other hand, are more likely to occur on Thursdays. “Not only is email the most pervasive form of communication, it is also the most popular vector for cyber attacks. This makes it the biggest vulnerability for any organization, FireEye's Ken Bagnall commented. "A single malicious email can cause significant image damage and financial loss ”.
Considerations confirmed by another research conducted by Kaspersky Lab. Morten Lehn, General Manager Italy of Kaspersky Lab, explained that a data breach within a company can damage the reputation and privacy of customers but also financial damage and impact on the career of staff. Globally, 42% of companies have experienced at least one data breach in the past year, sometimes due to the superficiality of employees. And about one in three data breaches (31%) led to job losses. Senior employees are among the most involved. In two out of five cases, personal information identifying a user or customer was affected (41% for small and medium-sized enterprises and 40% for large companies). And more than a quarter of small and medium-sized enterprises (27%) and large companies (31%) have had to pay penalties and fines. “For a business, a data breach can be devastating. With data traveling on devices and through the cloud, and with regulations like the GDPR coming into effect, it is essential that companies pay even more attention to their data protection strategies. "