Hacker phishing city

More than 4 of every 5 organisations encountered ransomware or phishing attacks in the last year

A report originating from Trend Micro has disclosed that over 80% of US organisations have reported ransomware or phishing attempts within the last year.

These discoveries come from an Osterman Research study, authorised by Trend Micro, in which interviews with experts in cyber security from midsized and large organisations were collected. This study also revealed that 50% of US organisations are not taking effective measures to combat phishing.

The article further dissects the threat landscape into 17 different types of security incidents, with 84% of organisations having faced at least one of them in the last 12 months, further highlighting the desperate need to increase preparation prior to encountering phishing and ransomware. The most frequent types of threats included Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, at 53%, phishing emails leading to malware infections, at 49%, and account compromise, at 47%.

Just over one third of organisations deemed that they were ‘highly effective’ in their counteractive cyber security strategies at tackling 11 or more of the 17 threats identified in the landscape, whilst 63% were confident that they could handle 10 or less of the 17 threats identified.

The report also identified that just under 3 out of every 4 organisations believe that they have insufficient prevention safeguards against mitigating risks on corporate networks induced by home-working.

According to 48% of survey responders, the after-effects of a ransomware attack, such as a damaged brand image and the inability to recover organisational data are of high concern, and 55% said that not being able to prevent an attack in the first place is of particularly high concern.

“Phishing and ransomware were already critical enterprise security risks even before the pandemic hit and, as this report shows, the advent of mass remote working has increased the pressure of these threats. Organizations need multi-layered defenses in place to mitigate these risks.”

Joy Clay – Vice President of threat intelligence, Trend Micro

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