Hackers using email to get into a user’s system has existed for nearly as long as email has existed. But since its inception, phishing emails and attacks have become much more common – in 2018 alone, more than 80% of people received phishing emails and over 60% if businesses went through phishing attacks. Phishing is also becoming more common; from 2013 to 2018, phishing attacks have nearly doubled in number. Out of the 384 billion emails sent every day, 85% of them are spam emails – with billions of attempts, some will manage to trick unwitting users.
A surprising number of people have been compromised by phishing emails – 1 out of every 3 users have had a computer infected with a virus or malware, been notified that their account has been jeopardized, or have had a social media account or an email account hacked into. As a result of these attacks, consumers have had accounts compromised, malware infected onto devices, and have experienced major data losses. Businesses can be hit even harder by phishing attacks – nearly $2 million on average as a result of a phishing attack. These losses are from decreased productivity, data loss, and reputation damage – 1 out of every 3 consumers would stop using a business after a security breach.
Fending off a phishing attack is very important as it can cause huge damages. But tech, a lot of the time, won’t be able to safeguard against phishing attacks. Learn more about how phishing attacks are able to get into a user’s system and how, by utilizing people, we can better fight off phishing attacks here.
