Sensitive data leaks are too common in the headlines these days, and there is no need to waste space explaining why it is essential to secure your sensitive information. Secure encryption is one such method to ensure your email messages are encrypted to be read-only by the intended recipients. Sending an encrypted email message is the need of the hour for business or professional practice and Outlook encryption is the best possible solution available in the market.

As we navigate through 2023, ransomware attacks continue to grow in scale and sophistication. This year has already witnessed an alarming number of high-profile incidents (at the time of writing), meaning ransomware attacks remain one of the most significant cybersecurity threats organizations face.

This, as well as other notable threats from the previous quarter, are discussed in the report, Q1 2022 Threat Landscape: Threat Actors Target Email for Access and Extortion.

Phishing website links are commonly delivered via email to their respective targets. Once clicked, these websites often show a single webpage that outright asks for sensitive information like account login credentials, credit card details, and other personally identifiable information (PII). Recently, we have encountered an interesting phishing website containing an interactive component in it: a chatbot.

Spanish police say that they have dismantled a phishing gang operating across the country, following the arrest of 13 people and the announcement that they are investigating a further seven suspects. According to police, the phishing ring defrauded some 146 victims, stealing at least 443,600 Euros from online bank accounts. Victims were tricked into handing over their login credentials through the distribution of emails that pretended to come from legitimate banks, posing as security alerts.

In Q1 2022, Kroll observed a 54% increase in phishing attacks being used for initial access in comparison with Q4 2021. Email compromise and ransomware were the two most common threat incident types, highlighting the integral part played by end users in the intrusion lifecycle.

Email security is not a simple check-box item. The need to have a strong email security solution in place has never been greater. Email is ubiquitous, and the average employee receives so many emails on a daily basis that they often open and click on messages without giving a second thought to any potential problem they might pose. This means an organization must have an email security solution in place to find and block suspicious emails before someone mistakenly clicks on a link.

In Q1 2022, Kroll observed an 54% increase in phishing attacks being used for initial access when compared to Q4 2021. For the first time since the Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities in Q1 2021, email compromise surpassed ransomware as the top threat incident type observed.

Over US $43 billion has been lost through Business Email Compromise attacks since 2016, according to data released this week by the FBI. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a public service announcement on May 4 2022, sharing updated statistics on Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks which use a variety of social engineering and phishing techniques to break into accounts and trick companies into transferring large amounts of money into the hands of criminals.