For cybercriminals looking to attack businesses, email continues to be the preferred attack vector. Despite a rapidly changing technology landscape with new innovations such as ChatGPT, cybercriminals are opting to adapt their email-based techniques to improve old tactics rather than create new methods altogether. This is largely because email provides cybercriminals with a direct line of communication to end users.

For its 2023 Cybersecurity Threat Report, OpenText Cybersecurity examined more than 13 billion emails sent in 2022 and found email threats were on the rise. Approximately 56% of them were unwanted emails, including spam, phishing, and email with attached malware – a 12.5% increase over 2021’s numbers. Of the 7.3 billion unwanted emails, over 1 billion were classified as phishing.