When it comes to businesses getting hacked, there’s one piece of data that’s not in dispute. Somewhere between 91-93 percent of all cybercrimes and cyberattacks start with a phishing email. In other words, just before you get hacked, you get phished.
According to Deloitte, one-third of respondents said they would stop dealing with a business following a cybersecurity breach, even if they do not suffer a material loss. Likewise, according to Aviva, after a company is breached, 60 percent of customers will think about moving and 30 percent actually will.
Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine your company just got hacked and a third of your customers switch over to your competitor because of it. At that moment, if it were possible, what would you pay to go back in time and install technology that would prevent your company from being phished? In other words, how much would you pay to get unhacked?
Prevention is the best medicine
When it comes to training employees to spot phishing emails, in general, companies have been proactive. According to the 2018 Wombat report, 95 percent of businesses provided some sort of employee training. The problem with phishing training is that even the best training is only 98 percent effective.
That might seem good, but it’s not, because it only takes one click for a business to get hacked. To put that in perspective, if a business that receives 1,000 emails a day, that means there are 20 clicks on malicious links happening every day. And that’s with fully-trained employees.
Companies have been less than eager to purchase advanced anti-phishing technology. According to that same Wombat report, less than half have deployed such technology.
Can’t be too safe
The best way to keep your company from being hacked is to keep phishing emails out of your employees’ inboxes in the first place. The second best way is to make sure that even if malicious emails get through AND someone clicks on an embedded link, you still don’t get phished because you installed technology to prevent that sort of thing.
Technology exists that can keep most phishing emails out of inboxes and prevent phishing from those that get through. So why do so few companies purchase it? The only conclusion that can be drawn is that companies simply don’t know about it. But now they do, and they should.
One thing is is for sure: Investing in phishing prevention technology is a lot cheaper and faster than trying to get unhacked.
