A new survey suggests that spear-phishing costs companies an average of $1.6m per incident, or for US companies, $1.8m. The Vanson Bourne/Cloudmark survey found that spear-phishing attacks totalled 38% of all cyber attacks on companies in the past 12 months, and 90% of those who responded said that it was employees’ email – increasingly at C-suite staff – that were typically targeted. Almost 75% of IT decision makers felt that spear-phishing attacks posed a significant threat to their organisation, with 20% ranking it as the primary concern. Almost 30% of respondents revealed that spear-phishing incidents got past their cyber defences, a figure that rose to 33% in the US. “Companies are not only losing money from spear phishing, but they also have to spend time dealing with it,” says Chris Wysopal, chief security officer at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.
A new survey suggests that spear-phishing costs companies an average of $1.6m per incident, or for US companies, $1.8m. The Vanson Bourne/Cloudmark survey found that spear-phishing attacks totalled 38% of all cyber attacks on companies in the past 12 months, and 90% of those who responded said that it was employees’ email – increasingly at C-suite staff – that were typically targeted. Almost 75% of IT decision makers felt that spear-phishing attacks posed a significant threat to their organisation, with 20% ranking it as the primary concern. Almost 30% of respondents revealed that spear-phishing incidents got past their cyber defences, a figure that rose to 33% in the US. Such attacks have been responsible for some high-profile data breaches in the US, including those against the Pentagon and Sony.