Securing the Enterprise in the COVID world – The State of Email Security

Email: An Invaluable Tool and a Growing Threat

As COVID-19 swept the globe, businesses found themselves more reliant than ever on email. But this greater dependence also posed new and insidious threats.

There’s no question that the pandemic-driven shift from office to home-based work was a major contributor. With the flip of a figurative switch, interaction and collaboration shifted to digital only, and companies had to scramble to adjust. Cybersecurity teams, many of which were already resource poor, had new tools, systems, devices, and locations to protect overnight. And where most of the world saw crisis, cybercriminals saw opportunity, a fact that is reflected by the level of attacks organizations experienced during this period.

In response, 55% of technology and security executives, according to a recent PwC survey, planned to increase their cybersecurity budgets and add to their full-time cyber staffs in 2021—even as they expect pandemic-induced disruptions to cause business revenue to decline.

This is in line with a Gartner Group finding that in the wake of the worldwide lockdown, two-thirds (67%) of corporate boards planned to increase their IT and technology budgets by an average of 7%.

Among these criminals, email remains the most popular way to try and sidestep a business’ defenses and here, in Mimecast’s fifth annual State of Email Security report, we cast a harsh light on their efforts. Included in our 2021 survey results are important insights into the latest wave of email-borne threats and how companies from 10 countries on five continents are poised to counter them.

Up-to-the-minute data provided by the Mimecast Threat Center adds additional context and serves to underscore the magnitude of the post-COVID risks posed by increased digitalization of the workplace and growing reliance on email.