DataLink technology partner Barracuda Networks has announced key findings from a new  research survey of global IT stakeholders to capture their experiences and attitudes about the current state of email security.

The study, 2018 Email Security Trends, includes responses from 634 executives, individual contributors and team managers serving in IT-security roles in the Americas, EMEA and APAC. A wide range of questions captured hard data about ransomware, phishing and other threats, as well as the related business impacts, prevention efforts and email-security capabilities most beneficial for stopping attacks.

Overall, the study indicates that email threats continue to increase and the impact on staff and productivity is escalating. The vast majority of IT professionals believe that end-user training and awareness programs are a vital pre-requisite to help mitigate threats and improve email security.

Key takeaways from the report include…

• Email security threats are pervasive. 87% of IT security professional said their company faced an attempted email-based security threat in the past year.

• The threat of ransomware is a concern. More than 1/3 of those surveyed have already experienced an attack.

• More than 90% said email archiving is critical, citing a variety of business benefits. Maintaining an audit trail for compliance purposes, investigating suspicious activity, and cutting costs for e-discovery requests were the top reasons.

• Larger businesses are more concerned about Office 365 email security; smaller businesses are less concerned. This could be because larger companies have more data at risk in Office 365, due to having broader deployments that include SharePoint, OneDrive and other applications.

• There’s a strong consensus of opinions about employee training and its effect on email-based security. 100% said end-user training is important to prevent attacks. 98% said there are better ways to train employees than traditional classroom-style education, including customized examples that are relevant to an employee’s department and role, unscheduled simulations of typical attacks, training modules that can be done at the employee’s convenience, and rewards for taking the right actions.

Email threats continue to become more targeted, making a multi-layered approach critical in successfully protecting targeted employees, applications, and data.

DataLink security experts can help you implement a broad solution from Barracuda that offers effective protection against email-borne targeted attacks and social engineering. Contact us today at (410) 729-0440 or info@datalinktech.com.