State Of Email During COVID-19 and An Increase In BEC Attacks During the Pandemic

“Email may well be your most productive marketing tool.” – Dan Zarrella

In this article, we’ll cover the following email industry news:

1. [Webinar] The state of email amid the COVID-19 mayhem
2. An increase in BEC attacks during the time of the pandemic

Ready to dive in?

Email Marketing During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Has your inbox been flooded with COVID-19-related email messages? Trust us, you’re not alone.

According to recent data, in today’s COVID-19 pandemonium, 1 in 15 marketing emails contain content related to the virus. The percentage of virus-related emails in the last couple of weeks of March was 2%. However, that percentage has peeked to 7% but the rates are decreasing on the weekends.

Moreover, COVID-19 email messages have placed 2% higher in inbox deliverability than emails with non-virus content. Additionally, such emails are 11% less likely to be marked as spam. The stats also point out that recipients were 10% more likely to open virus-related emails than any other messages on weekdays. But now, that percentage has decreased and it’s close to 7%. However, recipients are 30% more inclined to open such emails on weekends.

In the days before the pandemic, standard marketing keywords such as “new” or “now” were dominating the marketing emails. But, in the days amid the COVID-19 mayhem, there’s been a dramatic switch in keywords. Now, leading words are “COVID” and “coronavirus” along with keywords/keyphrases conveying a sentiment such as “stay safe”, “hope you are doing well”, etc. According to Validity’s senior director of product management Greg Kimball, the education, manufacturing, distribution and government sectors are “carrying the weight on the proportion of emails”.

You can get more information by watching this awesomely detailed webinar.

FBI Warns About A Rise In BEC Attacks Due To COVID-19

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a warning that cybercriminals are abusing popular cloud-based email services amid the COVID-19 pandemic in order to expand their business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

The agency pointed out that a typical BEC scam involves recipients getting emails they believe to have been sent by a company they usually conduct business with. However, these emails request money to be sent to a new account or alter the normal payment practices. The bureau has witnessed that COVID-19 has been used as the false reason for changing the payment practices.

This is the second time within a month that the FBI has warned people about the malicious attackers. According to the agency’s press release, “recently, there has been an increase in BEC frauds targeting municipalities purchasing personal protective equipment or other supplies needed in the fight against COVID-19.”

Here are a couple of recent examples of COVID-19 BEC attacks –

1) a financial institution received an email claiming to allegedly have come from the CEO of a company where he requested a previously scheduled transfer of $1 million to be moved up and the recipient account to be changed “due to the Coronavirus outbreak and quarantine processes and precautions.”

2) a bank customer received an email from someone who climbed to be one of the customer’s clients in China where the alleged client has requested all invoice payments to be changed to a different bank due to their usual bank account being inaccessible because of a “coronavirus audit.” The victim had already made a few transfers before discovering the fraud.

The first warning issued by the FBI in regards to BEC scams was last month – March 8 – where the bureau informed that hackers were targeting Microsoft 365 and G Suite users.

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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/g754ki/state_of_email_during_covid19_and_an_increase_in/