• by Ray Schultz , February 12, 2021

Businesses were exposed to many email threats in 2020, judging by a report from Barracuda Networks Inc.

There were 512 attacks per organization, and 14% of all email inboxes had at least one attack attempt detected, according to analysis of   Barracuda’s Email Threat, which detected 2,029,413 unique attacks among 4,550 users and 2,600,513 mailboxes.  

Phishing attacks were the top threat faced by email security solutions (59%). Scamming constituted 39% of the threats, extortion 9% and business email compromise (BEC) 8%).

"Spear phishing threats are more dangerous than ever due to the sophistication of attackers, and while organizations have invested in protection against email threats, many of these attacks slip through gateways, landing in users' inboxes," states Don MacLennan, senior vice president, engineering & product management, email protection for Barracuda. 

MacLennan adds: "As these numbers show, traditional email gateways are not enough. Customers should also use API-based inbox defenses to maximize their protection."