New research from Comparitech has revealed that UK government employees received 2.4 billion malicious emails in 2021. This equates to around 2400 emails per employee, per year.
The tech research firm acquired this information through Freedom of Information Requests.
Perhaps more concerning, it’s estimated that employees across 260 organisations clicked 57,000 suspicious links over 2021.
Assessed by employee, NHS Digital recorded by far the highest number of malicious emails in 2021 (89,353), followed by the government of Northern Ireland (34,561) and the Financial Reporting Council (25,992).
Paul Bischoff, Privacy Advocate at Comparitech and the author of the study, added:
“Seventy-one government departments were also happy to report that they hadn’t suffered a ransomware attack in 2021 (the remainder – 187 – didn’t disclose whether they had or not). Only two government organizations revealed that they had suffered a successful ransomware attack in 2021.”
