Email attacks surge in APAC, phishing up by 30% in 2024

New research from Abnormal Security has revealed a significant increase in email attacks across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, encompassing Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Singapore.

The study examined advanced email attack trends utilising data from Abnormal's customer base. This analysis drew out patterns from different types of email threats, including traditional business email compromise (BEC) attacks such as executive impersonation and payment fraud, alongside credential phishing and malware attacks.

According to the findings, the frequency of these email attacks rose notably between 2023 and 2024. The median monthly rate of advanced email attacks surged by 26.9%, growing from 472 attacks per 1,000 mailboxes to 600. A quarterly analysis showed a 16% increase in attack volumes from Q1 to Q2 in 2024 and a further 20% increase from Q2 to Q3.

Phishing emerged as the most prominent threat, seeing a 30.5% year-over-year rise across the APAC region. Regionally, phishing attacks were particularly severe in Japan and Singapore, where they rose by 37%. Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand experienced a 30% increase in such incidents.

In addition to phishing, BEC attacks also showed a 6% year-over-year growth rate in the APAC region. Despite the slower growth compared to phishing, BEC attacks remain significant due to their precision and financial impact. Successful BEC attacks have average losses over USD $137,000, with global losses reported at USD $2.9 billion in 2023.

Unlike phishing, BEC attacks primarily exploit social engineering techniques rather than technical vulnerabilities, enabling them to bypass traditional security measures. This places a significant onus on employees as the final line of defence, highlighting the need for solutions capable of counteracting such threats in real-time.

Tim Bentley, Vice President of APJ at Abnormal Security, explained the importance of the findings. "The surge in attack volume across the APAC region can likely be attributed to several factors, including the strategic significance of its countries as epicentres for trade, finance, and defence," Bentley said. "This makes organisations in the region attractive targets for complex email campaigns designed to exploit economic dynamics, disrupt essential industries, and steal sensitive data."

He further commented, "As sophisticated email-based threats continue to rise, businesses in the APAC region must evolve their defences, including investing in intelligent security solutions that can precisely detect and block attacks before they land in employee inboxes."

Abnormal Security is the AI-native human behaviour security platform, leveraging machine learning to stop sophisticated inbound attacks and detect compromised accounts across email and connected applications. The anomaly detection engine leverages identity and context to understand human behaviour and analyse the risk of every cloud email event - detecting and stopping sophisticated, socially-engineered attacks that target the human vulnerability.