According to a report by GreatHorn, phishing emails are one of the most common and powerful ways to infect an organization with malware, which can lead to data breaches, ransomware, and many other threats.

Indeed, the study found out that 52% of cybersecurity professionals are most concerned with malicious payloads being delivered via email, and 47% are most worried about such payloads being delivered by a hyperlink within an email.

Moreover, it also reported that 54% have been targeted by ransomware over the past 12 months, and among them, 66% paid the ransom. 71% also declared that they’re very concerned about email being the gateway toward ransomware. Besides, 75% stated that ransomware has increased over the past year while 62% expect ransomware to increase even after the pandemic.

Hence, to protect businesses, the study advises to do:

1. Attachment inspection: Use security technology that can inspect file attachments in emails to scan content, filenames, and attachment types of incoming messages so as to avoid malicious payloads.
2. URL inspection. Use a tool that can detect malicious URLs in an email.
3. Behavioral analytics. Your security defenses also need to leverage behavioral analytics and detect anything that could have malicious content.