77% of businesses expect to experience email fraud in the next year

Global market research from Proofpoint, Inc., a leading cybersecurity company, reveals 82% of boards are concerned with email fraud and more than half (59%) consider it a top security risk — no longer just an IT issue. Yet almost a third (30%) of respondents cited a lack of executive support as a key challenge to email fraud protection deployment.

“Email fraud is highly pervasive and deceptively simple; hackers don’t need to include attachments or URLs, emails are distributed in fewer volumes and typically impersonate people in authority for maximum impact,” said Robert Holmes, Vice President of Email Security Products for Proofpoint. “These and other factors make email fraud, also known as business email compromise (BEC), extremely difficult to detect and stop with traditional security tools. Our research underscores that organisations and boardrooms have a duty to equip the entire workforce with the necessary solutions and training to protect everyone against this growing threat.”

Proofpoint’s 2018 Understanding Email Fraud Survey, asked 2,250 senior IT decision makers across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Australia for their email fraud experiences from the last two years. The survey, conducted by research firm Censuswide, demonstrates that email fraud is pervasive, disruptive and in many cases, catching businesses unprepared. Insights include:

• 75% of organisations experienced at least one targeted email fraud attack, with 41% suffering multiple attempts in the last two years. However, some organisations are taking proactive measures to protect both their brand and their employees. More than half (57%) have implemented a user-awareness program on phishing and 46% use email authentication.
• More than 77% of businesses expect they will fall victim to email fraud in the next 12 months and yet only 40% have full visibility into email threats. There is a disconnect between the anxiety felt by IT decision makers in relation to protecting the organisation from email fraud and the buy-in from the boardroom to implement preventative methods.
• Cybercriminals are reaching deeper into the organisation beyond the C-suite. Respondents deemed the Finance and Accounts Payable departments most at risk of receiving spoofed emails, with the C-level executives almost on par with the general workforce.
• More than half (56%) of respondents who were aware of a breach in the last two years, suffered downtime and disruption and a third (33%) experienced a loss of funds. Email fraud also puts employees directly at risk. Nearly one in four attacks (24%) resulted in employment termination.

“With 59% of organisations considering email fraud one of the top security risks to their business, it is encouraging that some are adopting techniques to protect their employees, partners and customers. As the volume of attacks and level of sophistication employed by cybercriminals increase, organisations need to proactively shut down these tactics before the damage is done,” continued Holmes.

Proofpoint research shows email fraud has a direct impact on both employers and employees. Businesses suffer downtime and loss of revenue and individuals could potentially lose their jobs. By implementing a multi-layered defence strategy, organisations can protect their systems from advanced data-stealing attacks and protect their employees by blocking, detecting and responding to email fraud attacks.