Cybercriminals are evolving their tactics and targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) more aggressively than ever. SMBs are often seen as easier targets due to fewer resources dedicated to cybersecurity, making them attractive prey for cybercriminals. As a partner, that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Understanding the latest threats enables you to better protect your clients while positioning yourself as a trusted cybersecurity partner.
Here’s a look at the top email-based threats that SMBs are facing in 2024, and how you can help safeguard your customers.
Phishing Attacks: More Sophisticated and TargetedPhishing continues to be the most common cyber threat to SMBs, but the methods have become increasingly refined. Attackers are creating highly personalized emails that trick employees into divulging sensitive information or clicking malicious links.
What You Need to Know:
Educate your clients on the importance of employee awareness and training, while offering advanced email security solutions like MailGuard that can detect and block phishing attempts in real time.
Spear Phishing and Business Email Compromise (BEC)Unlike standard phishing, spear phishing and BEC involve highly targeted attacks that impersonate senior executives or trusted business contacts. These scams often result in unauthorized wire transfers or sensitive data breaches, making them extremely costly for SMBs.
What You Need to Know:
Offer your clients email protection solutions that can detect and prevent impersonation attacks, including with custom rule sets and spear phishing policies, and emphasize the need for multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strict email verification processes.
Ransomware Delivered via EmailRansomware continues to devastate SMBs, with attackers using malicious attachments or links within emails to deliver their payloads. Once the ransomware is activated, businesses are forced to either pay a ransom or suffer severe operational disruptions.
What You Need to Know:
Encourage your clients to invest in comprehensive email filtering solutions that detect ransomware in attachments before they reach employees' inboxes. Backup and recovery solutions like MailGuard Live and SafeGuard should also be part of their cybersecurity strategy.
Malware in DisguiseAttackers are increasingly disguising malware as legitimate files or software updates, tricking users into downloading and executing malicious code. These attacks can lead to data theft, system corruption, or network-wide infections.
What You Need to Know:
Partner with email security vendors that offer deep experience in threat protection, and expert support to protect against attacks being delivered to end-users.
Zero-Day ExploitsZero-day vulnerabilities are flaws in software and systems vulnerabilities that are unknown to the vendor, giving attackers an open window to exploit them. Email is a common delivery method for these types of attacks, as hackers embed links or attachments that exploit unpatched systems.
What You Need to Know:
Keep clients informed about the importance of regular software updates and patches. Offer them proactive solutions that provide zero-day protection and monitor for emerging threats in real time. Remind them that MailGuard is up to 48 hours ahead of other vendors in stopping zero-day exploits from reaching inboxes.
Social Engineering ScamsCybercriminals continue to exploit human psychology through social engineering scams, where they manipulate individuals into divulging confidential information or taking actions that compromise security. These attacks can bypass traditional security measures by exploiting trust within organizations.
What You Need to Know:
Your clients must understand that security is not just a technology issue, but a human one. Offer solutions that focus on both technical protection and user education. Regularly update clients with the latest examples of social engineering scams and how to recognize them. Subscribing to the MailGuard blog and sharing examples of new threats is a great way to boost awareness.
How to Help SMBs Stay Secure in 2024
To effectively protect your clients from these evolving threats, it’s vital to offer more than just basic email protection. Here are some ways to build robust security strategies for SMBs:
Layered Security Solutions: Ensure that clients are aware that Microsoft 365 and Google will not stop all threats. A specialist vendor solution like MailGuard for email filtering is critical to ensure that sophisticated and advanced attacks aren’t getting through. Better still, combine email filtering with endpoint protection, firewalls, backup and continuity solutions to create a multi-layered defense against cyber threats.Education and Training: Regularly educate your clients and their employees about current cyber threats and best practices for recognizing and avoiding suspicious emails.
Proactive Monitoring: Offer managed services that include continuous monitoring for email-based threats, helping to detect attacks before they cause damage.
Data Backup and Recovery Plans: Ensure your clients have reliable data backups and a clear disaster recovery plan in case of a ransomware attack or other major incident. Speak to our team about MailGuard Live and SafeGuard to supplement the client’s email security posture.
Conclusion: The Value of Partnering with the Right Email Security Provider
As cyber threats grow in complexity, SMBs need a trusted advisor who can guide them through the constantly shifting cybersecurity landscape. By partnering with a leading email security provider like MailGuard, you can offer your clients the advanced protection they need to defend against these top threats in 2024. This not only strengthens their business resilience but also enhances your value as a partner, driving long-term customer relationships and recurring revenue.
By staying ahead of these trends and understanding the evolving threat landscape, you position yourself as an indispensable resource to your clients, ensuring they remain secure and operational in an increasingly hostile digital world.
Keeping Businesses Safe and Secure
Prevention is always better than a cure, and one of the best defences is to encourage businesses to proactively boost their company’s cyber resilience levels to avoid threats landing in inboxes in the first place. The fact that a staggering 94% of malware attacks are delivered by email, makes email an extremely important vector for businesses to fortify.
No one vendor can stop all email threats, so it’s crucial to remind customers that if they are using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, they should also have a third-party email security specialist in place to mitigate their risk. For example, using a specialist third-party cloud email solution like MailGuard.
MailGuard provides a range of solutions to keep businesses safe, from email filtering to email continuity and archiving solutions. Speak to your customers today to ensure they’re prepared and get in touch with our team to discuss fortifying your customer’s cyber resilience.
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