In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, various organizations in the UAE witnessed a staggering rise in the number of cyber attacks. In the first half of 2020 itself, the UAE faced more than 6 million email-related cyber attacks. 

As the number of internet users increased every day and almost every organization ran business remotely, cyber criminals were quick at exploiting the pandemic and lock down the situation in their favor. The widening gap between home IT security and organizational IT infrastructure motivated hackers to easily penetrate the corporate network system. 

The UAE is a global business hub and a number of world-renowned companies are based here. Therefore, cyber criminals targeted the country to conduct email-based cyber attacks which have increased during the pandemic.

As per a cyber security report:

• Organizations in the UAE faced 6,042,459 email threats during H1 2020.

• These email threats accounted for about one-seventh of the wider GCC’s (41,236,550) email threats.

• 93% of 27.8 billion cyber threats were email-borne in H1 2020 globally.

• Nearly 92% of the total of 8.8 million Covid-19 related threats were email spams.

• Business Email Compromise (BEC) detections rose by 18% in H1 2020 from H2 2019.

Major Reasons Behind Increased Email-based Cyber Attacks

Covid-19 Pandemic: 

The first half of 2020 was hugely dominated by the pandemic that forced several office executives to stay home and take up an alternative way to keep going. As a result, this has given an increase in an email communication from home. In fact, according to security research, more than 240 million Covid-related spam emails were sent per day in April 2020, . 

Lack of Cyber Security Awareness:

Security research recently revealed that the employees, their devices, their training, and the company policies are not up to the mark when it comes to cyber security awareness. Cyber attackers are very innovative in coming up with new ways to spoof legitimate domains to carry email fraud practices. As a result, the employees are becoming victims of email frauds and end up goofing up with the suspicious or unsolicited emails sent by attackers.

Gap Between Home and Office Network: 

Office security network is totally different from the home network. The IT infrastructure in the organization is always fortified by a robust and secure network, under which employees access the company’s sensitive information. But home networks are not always secure as the employees may use outdated software or access social media websites without authentication. Therefore, it is easy for hackers to penetrate the organizations’ data by misusing these security flaws. 

The “Must Follow” Security Measures to Reduce Email Threats

You can easily minimize the risk of email threats and protect your sensitive data if you take up some measures. Below we have mentioned some “must follow” steps to reduce the email threats:

1. Train and educate the employees on cyber security awareness as per their roles in the company.
2. Avoid opening unsolicited and suspicious emails regardless of how enticing they are.
3. Always check the sender’s address and make sure that the email is sent from a valid IP address
4. Refrain from clicking or downloading irrelevant email attachments.
5. Hover the cursor over the hyperlink in the email, if any, to see if the URL is redirected to the relevant webpage.
6. Check for grammatical and spelling errors in the email and make sure the subject line of the email is making sense with the email content.
7. Implement a strong and complicated password and change the password from time to time
8. Apply two-factor or multi-factor authentication.
9. Defend your email domain by incorporating email authentication protocols such as DMARC, SPF and DKIM

What is the Cyber Security Solution to Maintain Email Security?

For almost every organization today, email is the key source of communication. In addition to providing employee training on security awareness, it is very important to secure the outbound mail flow against email spoofing and BEC attacks.

Protect the email domain of your organization by implementing KDMARC in your organization. KDMARC is an email authentication protocol monitoring and anti-spoofing tool. This tool monitors standard email authentication protocols like DMARC in alignment with SPF and DKIM. It not only secures the email domain but also your brand, customer base and company’s goodwill.

Below mentioned are some benefits of incorporating KDMARC in your organization as a cyber security solution:

• Blocks domain forgery 

• Detects and prevents against email spoofing attacks

• Increases email deliverability rate and enhances email engagement

• Generates comprehensive email domain threat summary report

• Gives detailed email domain threat analysis in your dashboard

• Provides full insight into email channels

KDMARC comes with two unique features:

• Smart DMARC: Set DMARC in a click-through KDMARC’s dashboard without the need to revisit the DNS

• Smart SPF: Alter IPs and email sources in SPF record through dashboard sans the need to visit the DNS

Click below to secure your email domain for FREE!