The Cyber Threat from Phishing Mails

Almost all government institutions, businesses, and private citizens in Denmark utilise email for communication. Emails can however with very limited technical skill be used by hackers to compromise an organisation or an individual. This is why it is valuable for hackers to be able to hide falsified and harmful mails among the flow of legitimate emails.

This threat assessment describes the threat from phishing emails. The assessment concludes that most cyber attacks today starts with a phishing mail. The amount of phishing mails is so large that many organisations experience daily attempts by hackers to compromise the organisations. Most phishing attacks are opportunistic, meaning that anybody with an email account is a potential target.

Cyber attacks that start with a phishing mail can have serious consequences for the victim in terms of financial loss, stolen data, reputation damage, or a serious network compromise of an organisation. For this reason it is important to be aware of the threat and implement appropriate precautions to mitigate the threat.