Why advanced email protection is more important than ever

The transition to hybrid work has been a complex journey that many organisations throughout the United Arab Emirates are still navigating. Employees and teams across industries continue to report higher productivity and collaboration levels than before the pandemic, with the newfound flexibility to work from anywhere on any device showing drastic increases in employee wellbeing and satisfaction. While usage of collaboration tools sky-rocketed over this period, the decades-old electronic mail remains an essential component of modern-day communication. In fact, the number of email users worldwide is set to grow from 4.26 billion in 2022 to 4.6 billion in 2025, making up more than half of the expected world population.

The remote work model has also contributed to the rise of many vulnerabilities within every organisation’s digital infrastructure. The combination of remote locations and reliance on mobile technology has led to more organisations and individual users falling victim to phishing emails as the attack surface continues to expand. Moreover, bad actors are becoming more convincing, as they have found spear-phishing to be more lucrative, where cybercriminals impersonate a senior executive to extract information or assets.

Furthermore, many employees are overlooking safer security practices, and some enterprises have not been consistent in their cybersecurity awareness training. The challenges keep piling up, and security teams are overburdened and overwhelmed trying to keep all digital activities safe.

This has not gone unnoticed by seasoned or newer cybercriminals that consistently target organisations via email. In 2021, our solutions detected and blocked over 31.6 million email threats, more than 5.4 million malware attacks, and over 35.8 million URL victims’ attacks. According to the Trend Micro Annual Cybersecurity Report 2021, 92 per cent of malware was delivered through email, with phishing emails being the most popular method of attack while business email compromise (BEC) threats delivered some of the most devastating attacks that the finance sector has ever felt in the threat landscape.

WATCH 🎬 | We cover the notable incidents in 2021 that underscored the need for organizations to break down data silos and stay on top of their growing IT infrastructures.

Get more details in our annual cybersecurity report ⬇️⬇️⬇️

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Furthermore, now that many employees have moved their setup to work from home, an exceedingly high number of home networks in the country have also been targeted. Smart Home Network (SHN) solutions protected devices and networks from over 15.7 million SHN inbound and outbound attacks and prevented over 5.4 million (5,456,869) SHN events.

Indeed, in our fast–paced digital world, the need for robust email security has never been more urgent. Security teams require an advanced blend of multi–layered threat defense techniques that stop phishing, weed out internal threats, respond quickly to attacks, and meet today’s compliance standards. Advanced email security solutions are required to deliver protection that is continuously updated and stops phishing, ransomware, BEC (business email compromise) scams, spam, and other advanced email threats before they reach your network.

Human error will always remain, but with the right cybersecurity innovations and a cohesive security strategy, organisations can offer their workforces a better chance of avoiding the modern-day traps of email scams that can result in greater security breaches. A fine balance of security awareness and robust solutions can ensure better protection of both the inbox and outbox of every account within an organisation, no matter how, when, or where the channels of communication are being utilised.

Majd Sinan is the country manager – UAE at Trend Micro

Read: Trend Micro survey forewarns MENA enterprises of customer record breach in 2022