According to SC Magazine, a report by Ivanti has revealed that leaders also engage in dangerous behavior and are four times more likely to be victims of phishing compared with office workers.
Some other findings:
- More than 1 in 3 leaders have clicked on a phishing link.
- Nearly 1 in 4 use easy-to-remember birthdays as part of their password.
- They are much more likely to hang on to passwords for years.
- And, they are five times more likely to share their password with people outside the company.
Professional cyberattackers favorably target those with more permissions, access or power within a company due to the far greater consequences than a regular employee. Although executives will be well aware of this increased chance of being targeted, they will also be inevitably more inundated with genuine requests to share sensitive information and therefore they will be more likely to accidentally fall for a scam especially with a lack of time for due diligence for each email.
Persistent attackers relentlessly send attempts to those higher up the chain who are often under pressure and they can fool even the most tech savvy of victim if the narrative fits. Passwords are often the real target of phishing attempts so it remains vital that companies adopt better password security features in their daily routines such as password managers and to enforce multi factor authentication on all important systems.
ESET Ireland 