SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At-Bay, the InsurSec provider for the digital age, today released its 2024 InsurSec Rankings Report - Email Security and Financial Fraud, which details new trends in email attacks and financial losses among mid-market and emerging businesses, and ranks today’s top email security solutions and email services from best to worst. One major finding from the report, which analyzes At-Bay’s email claims data from 2021 through the first half of 2024, shows that email incidents increased in the US in 2023, with the frequency of email claims jumping by nearly 25%. Financial fraud was also the most common email crime, involved in 3 of 5 email claims.
“As an InsurSec company, we are uniquely positioned to objectively measure and assess the effectiveness of today’s top email solutions at reducing cyber risk,” said Ayelet Kutner, Chief Technology Officer at At-Bay. “Today we can reveal that Google Workspace and Mimecast have once again topped their categories, and even improved their outcomes since our last ranking. Google Workspace customers and Mimecast customers experienced 54% and 37% fewer email security incidents, respectively, than the averages in their categories.”
Key findings from the report
-
Trends in email incidents
- The frequency of email incidents grew by 24% in 2023. This trend was consistent across businesses of all sizes.
- Larger companies, with annual revenue greater than $100M, saw the highest overall increase in frequency, experiencing 3X more email claims than companies under $25M.
- The three top most targeted industries for email crime in 2023 and the first half of 2024: Manufacturing, Finance, and Law Firms.
-
Spotlight on Financial Fraud
- Financial fraud was the most common cybercrime committed over email, accounting for 3 of 5 email claims in 2023 (61%), worsening to more than two-thirds (72%) in the first half of 2024. In 3 of 4 cases (75%), these incidents occurred with a vendor or partner the business already had a relationship with.
- Threat actors aren’t always after cash — they’re fraudulently redirecting goods. 4.5% of the incidents analyzed involved goods delivered to a threat actor without payment, spanning everything from Christmas decorations, to beauty products and paper towels.
- Financial fraud incurred significant damage to businesses of all sizes. The average amount of funds stolen in a financial fraud incident was $219K. In the most severe cases, threat actors stole more than $5M. The real estate industry saw the worst financial fraud cases with an average stolen funds amount of $434K.
- At-Bay helped policyholders to recover $61M in funds from 2023 through to the first half of 2024.
-
The best email service for risk
- Google Workspace customers experienced 54% fewer incidents compared to the average. This was an improvement from last year, where businesses that used Google saw 41% fewer claims. Businesses using Microsoft 365 had a relative claims frequency 45% higher than the overall average, seeing worse overall outcomes compared to last year’s report.
- In 2023, Google Workspace customers experienced 3X fewer cyber insurance claims compared to Microsoft 365 customers, further widening the gap since 2022, where Google Workspace customers experienced 2X fewer incidents than Microsoft 365.
-
The best email security solutions for risk
- Businesses using Mimecast for their email security experienced 37% fewer incidents than the average. This was the lowest claims frequency of the six email security providers analyzed and marks the second year in a row that Mimecast has topped the list.
- Proofpoint came in second again, with a slightly improved claims frequency compared to last year.
- Customers using Intermedia, Barracuda, Appriver, and Sophos all saw higher email claims frequency than the average, all worsening compared with 2023.
To download the full report and learn how organizations can better protect themselves from email crime, visit: 2024 InsurSec Rankings - Email Security and Financial Fraud Report.
Other resources:
- 2024 Analyst Report - InsurSec Can Drive An Effective Proactive Security Strategy
- 2024 InsurSec Report - Ransomware Edition
- 2023 InsurSec Report - Ranking Email Security Solutions
About At-Bay
At-Bay is the InsurSec provider for the digital age. By combining world-class technology with industry-leading insurance, At-Bay was designed from the ground up to empower businesses of every size to meet cyber risk head-on. At-Bay Insurance Services, LLC provides insurance protection and security prevention solutions to close to 40,000 businesses in the US, safeguarding up to $800B in collective business revenue, and offers coverage by admitted and non-admitted insurers for Cyber, Technology Errors & Omissions (Tech E&O), and Miscellaneous Professional Liability (MPL). The At-Bay Group also includes an active full-stack insurance company and a cybersecurity company. At-Bay Security offers proprietary cybersecurity solutions including At-Bay Stance Managed Detection & Response (MDR).
