Phishing and Social Engineering are #1 Attack Vector

A new study shows that the social engineering attacks along with phishing emails are the #1 attack vector for today’s organizations. This goes for internal networks, cloud environments, and POS systems which are all are very susceptible to this common threat.

It’s not great news– phishing emails and simple social engineering tactics are all that a bad guy needs to gain access to your organization’s network, applications, and data.

According to security vendor Trustwave in their 2020 Global Security Report, the combination of email-based phishing attacks and social engineering are nearly always the #1 attack vector in an average of 50% of incidents, up from 33% the previous year.

Here’s the numbers:

• 64% of corporate/internal network breaches
• 45% of breaches in the cloud
• 75% of attacks on POS systems

If that wasn’t bad enough, according to Trustwave, the median number of days between intrusion and detection is nearly 3 months (85 days) if detected externally (e.g., if data is breached, utilized, and tracked back to the breach) and still 8.5 days if detected internally by security solutions.

The study reports that the absence of users participating in identify and stopping malicious emails by not engaging with them is a big part of the problem:

“It is clear the human component of security, with the rank and file being aware of social engineering tactics, and how to combat them, is lagging.”

To face this issue, businesses need to employ security awareness training that instructs users on the widespread presence of phishing campaigns, the tactics used in social engineering scams, and the importance of their role in organizational security.

If you need help with employee awareness security training let contact Darkhound for more information at [email protected].

Source: Trustwave

Image Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-typing-writing-programming-7112/