"We exchange hundreds of files by e-mail every day,"
says Yassir Kazar, CEO of Yogosha, a platform that helps companies improve their cybersecurity.
And all these attachments are powerful attack levers.
Attached
files can indeed contain malicious software (malware) that antivirus software cannot always stop, due to their exponential proliferation: for the year 2021 alone, a study carried out by the AV-Test Institute [1] did status of 450,000 new malware identified every day.
They sometimes attack computer vulnerabilities that companies have not yet identified on their side, which makes their detection all the more difficult.
“All these attachments, exchanged daily between employees of a company, can therefore be very dangerous
,” continues Yassir Kazar.
Contrary to popular belief, a PDF is not a locked file that is free from suspicion: it may contain code that will trigger malicious actions on a computer, and from it, can infest the company's network.
"Hidden in a PDF, a ransomware will allow the cyberattacker to hold the company hostage by encrypting all its data, then to demand a ransom to decrypt it in order to "free" the company, giving it back access to its data.
»
The consequences of these attacks can be dramatic for companies: in 2021, the average amount of a ransom demanded by criminals during a ransomware attack was 2 million euros, according to the latest report by Unit 42, a cybersecurity research unit.
The average amount paid has never been so high: €495,000, an increase of 78%.
Faced with the mass of files exchanged and the growth in the number of attacks not managed by antivirus, we must therefore completely change our strategy.
“We have opted for a philosophy which consists of “protecting without detecting”,
explains Karim Driss, Chief Technology Officer at HP France.
Learn in the video above how businesses can now defend themselves with solutions that keep the computer safe from attacks contained in email attachments.
Learn more about HP Wolf Security
[1] source: www.av-test.org/fr/statistiques/malicious-software