Email is a fundamental tool for business communications. However, due to
its wide and ubiquitous usage it remains a primary vector for cyberattacks
making email protection a cornerstone of business resilience. From phishing to
ransomware, email-based threats can penetrate an organization's defenses
leading to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage. Among the
data in Verizon's Data Breach Investigation Report from 2023, there were 3
important findings:
- Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks doubled-representing 60% of
social engineering incidents, which means that advanced attacks like
credential harvesting, impersonations, domain spoofing, and others are the most
daunting ones as they can result in financial risk and reputational loss.
- 74% of breaches involve a human element, such as human error, use of stolen
credentials, or social engineering
- Three primary ways in which attackers access an organization's
data are via stolen credentials, phishing, and exploitation of vulnerabilities
Overall, in 2024 we are seeing that
successful attacks are usually email-initiated. This is because the ease with
which email can be used to distribute malicious content makes it a preferred
method for attackers. Consequently, businesses must prioritize email security
as the first line of defense against cyber threats.
The Role of Email Protection in Business Resilience
- Preventing Data Breaches: Email security solutions help
prevent data breaches by filtering out malicious emails before they reach
employees' inboxes. By leveraging advanced threat detection techniques such as
data science and machine learning, these solutions can identify and block
sophisticated phishing attempts and malware.
- Protecting Financial Assets: Business Email Compromise (BEC)
attacks can result in significant financial losses. Thus, implementing a robust
email security solution that can protect against advanced email threats is requisite
for organizations.
- Enhancing Employee Awareness: Security awareness training is
an integral part of a comprehensive email security strategy. By educating
employees on how to recognize and respond to email threats, businesses can
significantly reduce the likelihood of successful attacks. Phishing simulations
and interactive training sessions can reinforce best practices and foster a
security-conscious culture.
- Automating Incident Response: Automated incident response
capabilities can drastically reduce the time it takes to identify and mitigate
email threats. It relies on advanced technologies like AI and ML and automated
workflows to streamline and expedite the handling of security incidents.
Implementing a
Comprehensive Email Security Strategy
The benefits of moving to Microsoft Office 365,
such as ease of communication and collaboration while working anywhere in the
world from any device at any time, are evident. With high volumes of
email moving in and out of organizations, it is important to make sure that
email security solutions can keep up with daily threats circulating to find new
ways to infiltrate. M365 offers different security tiers for email security,
thus their capabilities vary a lot depending on the type of license an
organization purchase.
While M365 is good at basic email security
like anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spam, archiving and encryption, it does not
deliver advanced email capabilities to fully protect against sophisticated
email threats. In fact, most secure email gateways (SEGs) were not designed to
stop advanced email threats like identity deception, impersonation, BEC, etc.
While some M365 Exchange Online Protection-tiered plans come with Microsoft Defender
(or it can be bolted on), other third-party email security solutions in the
market provide higher levels of protection against more sophisticated, targeted
attacks, such as spear phishing.
So, to effectively protect against email
threats and enhance business resilience, organizations should consider a
multi-layered approach to email security. Today, Integrated Cloud Email
Security (ICES) solutions provide capabilities to identify, detect, and prevent
advanced email threats. These solutions can be deployed alongside M365 to
ensure your organization's valuable information remains secure - whether it is
hosted on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment. It's the help
your enterprise needs, without any of the common email security hassles.
Most of these solutions use a combination of
data science and ML models to evaluate a variety of unique attributes in emails
to further protect users' inboxes. ICES solutions add an extra layer of
security by covering areas that might be beyond the scope of Microsoft's native
capabilities. This includes enhanced protection against spear phishing, BEC,
and other advanced persistent threats (APTs). The embedded integration ensures
no gaps in coverage, providing comprehensive protection for all email
communications.
In conclusion, an ICES email security
solution offers a powerful and comprehensive defense against email threats when
combined with Microsoft Security. The synergy between advanced threat
detection, real-time intelligence, and automated incident response within an
ICES solution, creates a formidable barrier against cyber threats when coupled alongside
Microsoft's robust built-in protections.
Keeping digital information safe and
advocating for proactive measures to protect sensitive information through
email is vital to an organization. This is where integrated email security
solutions come in to provide comprehensive phishing protection and unstructured
data protection.
If organizations adopt this holistic approach,
it can bolster their email security posture, ensure resilience against evolving
cyber threats, and ensure the integrity of their communications.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ravisha Chugh is an Email
Security Evangelist at global cybersecurity
software and services provider Fortra. With over a decade of experience in cybersecurity, Ravisha is
passionate about helping organizations keep their digital information safe. She
understands the proactive measures and implementation strategies required to
protect sensitive information over email and guard against the evolving threat
landscape. At Fortra, Ravisha works closely with enterprise security and IT
teams, and guides Fortra's email security product strategy and messaging
accordingly. Previously, as a Senior
Principal Analyst at Gartner, she advised clients on email security, phishing
protection, and unstructured data security.