As companies rely on CFOs to mitigate risk, cyberattacks (and the costs associated with them), are a major concern. Now, there’s also a growing trend of cybercriminals targeting C-suite executives in their personal lives, instead of targeting them through their companies, according to a new report.

“This is a significant change in tactics, as in the past, most hackers would try to breach a company directly by hacking into its corporate network or compromising employee email accounts,” Chris Pierson, CEO of BlackCloak, a digital executive protection company that consults for Fortune 500s, tells me. “Now, we’re seeing many cybercriminal groups flip the script, by bypassing the corporate network altogether and going after the executives at home and through personal online accounts, where it is a lot easier to pull off a breach.”

BlackCloak and the Ponemon Institute released a report on Monday that found 42% of companies have experienced cybercriminal attacks on their senior-level corporate executives, which can compromise sensitive business data. The findings are based on a survey of 553 U.S.-based cybersecurity leaders.

“The purpose behind these attacks varies from hacker to hacker, but it usually boils down to financial theft or fraud, extortion, or reverse-breaches, where they try to gain access to corporate accounts, data and systems by sneaking in through the executive’s accounts, which are usually an open backdoor,” Pierson says.

To read the full article, click here: https://fortune.com/2023/06/08/hackers-targeting-c-suite-executives-personal-email-cybersecurity/