A corporate email account is much more likely to receive malware, phishing and spam emails than a personal inbox, according to an analysis conducted by Google.
Google’s Gmail service has more than one billion active users and the company says it blocks hundreds of billions of attacks aimed at these accounts every week. At the RSA Conference this week, the search giant shared some insight on the threats targeting corporate inboxes and how the numbers compare to other types of accounts.
Data collected so far this year (February 2017) shows that a corporate email account is 4.3 times more likely to receive malware, 6.2 times more likely to receive a phishing email, and 0.4 times more likely to receive spam compared to personal inboxes.
While corporate accounts seem to be attackers’ favourite targets when it comes to spam and phishing, non-profit, education and government organizations are more likely to see malware attacks compared to businesses.
The entertainment, IT, and housing sectors are the most targeted in spam campaigns, but phishing attacks are more likely to be aimed at the finance and insurance sector. When it comes to malware attacks, real estate was by far the most targeted sector.
The industries most targeted by malware attacks so far in 2017 in descending order are: real estate; transportation; construction; utilities and the retail trade.