Is Email Security Still a Thing in 2023?

Billions of spam emails reach employee inboxes every day. The seemingly innocuous email links and attachments remain the top medium cyber criminals use for phishing attacks. In Q1 2023, a staggering 500 million phishing emails were detected already, two times more than the previous quarter

So, is email security still a thing in 2023? Yes, it is integral to protecting businesses from cyber-attacks.

Email continues to be the favoured mode of communication across businesses, the number of emails sent daily increasing by 5% in the last year alone. As the email-use trends climb, the risk of phishing attacks rises too. According to a Verizon 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, phishing is one of the top five most common action varieties in data breaches.

Phishing emails containing malicious file attachments cause over 90% of cyber-attacks. The cybercrooks use phishing campaigns as the first step to infiltrate company systems. They use social engineering techniques to dupe victims into clicking email links containing viruses, malware and ransomware.

As a result, large corporations suffer business disruptions and loss of employee productivity. For small and medium businesses, loss of sensitive data and reputational damage are the likely impacts.

Financial services and healthcare are the two sectors most affected by email attacks.

Then, why email security risks are marginalised?

First, the automation trend is catching up rapidly. The automated tasks take attention away from the 1% human management necessary in email security management. Humans should always be the first line of defence against data breaches.

Second, security professionals misconstrue the native security promises of email service providers and disregard the high-level threat and risks. Third, email security is not a hot topic per se, and thus CISOs miss taking care of it.

Take, for instance, the low adoption of advanced email security tools.

Business organisations invest in technologies such as email authentication, malware detection, and spam protection, which protect against large-scale cyber-attacks. However, fewer businesses invest in advanced email security tools such as spear-phishing protection, DMARC enforcement, sandboxing to enable account takeover protection and Zero Trust Access.

Small and medium businesses are more vulnerable as the adoption of the latest and advanced security tools is less. But given how data breaches can cause huge monetary losses and reputational damage, businesses of all sizes should invest in email security technologies and the latest solutions.

Solutions: How to improve email security?

Automating email security management tasks is critical to improving email security. Security professionals should focus on using preventative tools to minimise risks. In addition, the implemented solutions should reinforce the security provided by service providers such as Gmail.

Artificial Intelligence or AI-powered anti-phishing tools are beneficial to detect threats with better accuracy. The powerful tool is capable of analysing malicious attachments and links and detecting messages focused on duping victims.

Educating employees with regular security awareness training, and running phishing simulation tests to examine the awareness and alert levels of the individuals are additional tips. It will help in developing good email habits too. What else can businesses do? Follow these best practices.

Best Practices

·? ? ? Use multi-layered email security and deploy machine learning technology in the email gateways

· ? ? ? Adopt Zero Trust Access strategy to protect user access

· ? ? ? Automate incident response to make the remediation process efficient

· ? ? ? Secure and backup sensitive company data

· ? ? ? Train and evaluate cybersecurity awareness of employees

·? ? ? Continuous optimisation of email security systems and strategies

As email use increases every year, the possibility of phishing attacks also increases. Implementing advanced email security measures is essential to protect businesses from disruption and losses.?