? EDITOR ’ S QUESTION //
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COVID-19
FORCED MANY ORGANISATIONS TO ACCELERATE
THEIR DIGITAL ADOPTION PLANS , AND SAAS APPS HAVE BECOME INDISPENSABLE TO REMOTE WORKERS .
Every month , we pose industry experts a question pertinent to the issues of the day . This month . . . .
REND MICRO , A leader in
T cloud security , blocked 16.7 million high-risk email threats that slipped past webmail providers ’ native filters . This amounts to an increase of nearly a third on 2019 figures .
The new statistics are provided by Trend Micro ’ s Cloud App Security ( CAS ), an APIbased solution that provides second-layer protection for Microsoft Exchange Online , Gmail and a host of other services .
“ COVID-19 forced many organisations to accelerate their digital adoption plans , and SaaS apps have become indispensable to remote workers . However , where there are users , there are also threats and we ’ ve seen a spike in attacks targeting organisations ’ perceived weakest link during the pandemic ,” said Wendy Moore , Vice President of Product Marketing for Trend Micro .
“ Trend Micro Cloud App Security has been indispensable in providing an extra layer of protection – each one of those nearly 17 million threats previously missed represents a risk of corporate data theft , ransomware and fraud .”
Detections of malware , credential theft and phishing emails all recorded double-digit yearon-year increases in 2020 , while BEC volumes dropped slightly .
Malware-laden emails : Trend Micro detected 1.1 million emails containing malware
WHAT IS THE BEST PRACTICE APPROACH ( FOR SMES ) TO PROTECT AGAINST HIGH-RISK EMAIL THREATS ?
that would otherwise have appeared in users ’ inboxes , up 16 % on 2019 figures . These included many Emotet and Trickbot attacks which are often the precursor to targeted ransomware .
Phishing : Trend Micro intercepted over 6.9 million phishing emails in 2020 , a 19 % increase from the previous year . Discounting credential phishing , the number of threats in this category surged 41 % over the period . COVID-19 was a common lure , as were bigname brands like Netflix that have become popular during the pandemic . Attackers were typically looking for personal and financial information to monetise .
Credential phishing : Trend Micro detected nearly 5.5 million attempts to steal users ’ credentials that were allowed through by existing cloud-native security filters . This was a 14 % increase on 2019 and accounted for the vast majority of detected phishing emails . Attackers are increasingly supplementing these with phone-based vishing attacks .
Business email compromise ( BEC ): Although BEC detections declined 18 % year-on-year , average losses continue to rise – increasing 48 % from the first to the second quarter of 2020 .
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