Introduction

^{2024 STATE OF THE PHISH: EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST \}^REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Cybersecurity headlines often focus on the clever social engineering and zero-day vulnerabilities used by attackers. But cybercriminals don’t always have to try that hard. According to this year’s State of the Phish survey, 71% of working adults admitted to taking a risky action, such as reusing or sharing a password, clicking on links from unknown senders, or giving credentials to an untrustworthy source. And 96% of them did so knowing that they were taking a risk. People are a key part of any good defence, but they can also be the most vulnerable. They may make mistakes, fall for scams or simply ignore security best practices.

This year’s global report is based on a survey of 7,500 end users and 1,050 security professionals, conducted across 15 countries—including eight in Europe and the Middle East.

It also includes Proofpoint data derived from our products and threat research, as well as findings from 183 million simulated phishing messages sent by our customers over a 12-month period and more than 24 million emails reported by our customers’ end users over the same period. And for the second year running, we’ve also compiled three regional summaries pointing out local nuances and variations.

Most users in Europe and the Middle East say they aren’t sure if security is their responsibility or someone else’s. And this lack of clarity can have significant consequences. Our data shows stark correlations between attitudes and outcomes across the region.

Every day, users in the region make choices between security and convenience. And this regional summary shows that most of the time they favor the latter.

In the following pages we’ll take a closer look at the attitudes of both security professionals and end users, as well as some key threat trends. And we’ll end with suggestions that should help people change their behaviour and start putting security first.