Case Study: How Cork Helped Birmingham Consulting Avert a Cyber Disaster

Amanda Groves, principal at Groves Law in Waterdown, Ontario, Canada, did something we all do every day: She clicked a link in an email from what appeared to be a trusted source. The link led to a SharePoint site that requested login information — unfortunately, Groves fell for a cleverly disguised link in a phishing email.

For all the security awareness training, warnings and advice on how to avoid being a victim of these attacks, they remain incredibly common and successful. IBM research showed that phishing scams are the leading initial attack vector, responsible for 41% of incidents. And according to GreatHorn, 57% of organizations face phishing scams weekly or daily. Nearly 1.2% of all emails sent are malicious, accounting for 3.4 billion phishing emails daily.

And human error continues to play a significant role, contributing to 74% of security breaches, according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2023.

Meanwhile, CSO Online reports that 80% of security incidents are attributed to phishing, with losses totaling $17,700 every minute due to these attacks.