Recent high-profile cyber attacks—from retail and finance to healthcare and government—show how the threat landscape is rapidly evolving. One click on a malicious link in an email can take down an entire corporation, so online privacy is more important than ever. For example, Medibank—a health insurer in Australia—suffered a significant data breach after an employee’s credentials were compromised, likely through a phishing attack. When Medibank refused to pay the ransom, hackers released the private medical data of 9.7 million people onto the dark web. The company has since been served with a class action lawsuit. In another example, T-Mobile recently settled a class action lawsuit related to a data breach in 2021 that impacted around 77 million people after customer data was listed for sale on the dark web. The case cost the company US$350 million—and that’s only one of eight data breaches it has disclosed since 2018. At least one of those data breaches was the result of stolen credentials. The financial losses and reputational damage from such attacks can be crippling. As Google explains, email is “the front door to your personal information” and a primary entry point for risks. Indeed, over
90% of cyber attacks begin with phishing, allowing attackers to gain personally identifiable information (PII) such as a person’s name, home address, email address, date of birth, social security number and medical information. Hackers can then sell this data on the dark web or use it for extortion, account takeovers and identity theft. Aside from financial losses and reputational damage, businesses that fail to protect PII may be fined under regulations such as the EU’s
General Data Protection Regulation, designed to protect consumer privacy. It’s crucial to understand the importance of email security in safeguarding personal and business information as part of your organization’s cybersecurity strategy.
