As the backbone of business communication, email has become a prime target for cybercriminals, serving as a major entry point for phishing attacks and malware distribution. Given its critical role, securing email channels is paramount to safeguarding your organization’s network. Modern email security solutions go beyond just filtering threats — they provide comprehensive protection by preventing access to harmful or distracting content, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, and monitoring communication for potential data breaches.
In a digital landscape where cloud and hybrid email platforms are increasingly prevalent, cloud-based email security has become indispensable. These solutions, often delivered as software-as-service (SaaS), are now essential for organizations aiming to enhance their cybersecurity posture and protect sensitive information.
This article explores a few effective practices for strengthening email security in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.
What best practices is your organization leveraging to stay ahead of emerging email-based threats in 2024?
Leveraging AI-Driven Email Security Solutions
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the cybersecurity landscape, particularly in email security. With the rise of AI-powered cyberattacks, traditional security measures often fall short. AI-driven email security solutions provide real-time threat detection and response capabilities, analysing vast data sets to identify patterns and detect anomalies that may signal an attack.
Best Practice: Implementing adaptive AI-based email security solutions that continuously learn and evolve, enhancing their ability to respond to emerging threats. This approach improves threat detection accuracy and automates responses to known threats, reducing the burden on security teams.
Companies to Action
Abnormal Security: Abnormal’s AI-native platform leverages insights into human behaviour to defend against tactics that exploit these behaviours, such as phishing, social engineering, and cloud account takeovers. By employing computer vision and natural language processing, the platform mimics human cognitive processes, enhancing threat detection capabilities.
Transitioning from Legacy Secure Email Gateways (SEGs)
As cloud adoption increases, traditional Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) are becoming less effective. SEGs, which rely on static rules and signatures, struggle to address the dynamic nature of modern threats, especially those involving social engineering.
Best Practice: Adopting application programming interface (API)-based email security solutions designed for cloud environments. These solutions offer scalability and flexibility, enabling organizations to adapt quickly to changing threats. Moreover, API-based solutions also provide advanced protection mechanisms, such as AI-driven behavioural analysis, to counter sophisticated phishing and social engineering attacks.
Companies to Action
Egress: Egress employs an adaptive security architecture, integrating threat intelligence and behavioral analytics. Its AI-powered Egress Defend extends the cloud email security solution, using a zero-trust approach to detect advanced phishing threats.
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How is your organization adapting to the evolving email security landscape to protect against phishing and malware?
Implementing Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) Protocols
The rise in spoofing attacks and business email compromise (BEC) scams highlights the importance of DMARC protocols. DMARC helps verify the sender’s identity and maintain the integrity of email messages, protecting against impersonation attacks.
Best Practice: The implementation and enforcement of DMARC protocols across all domains will serve as a critical measure in enhancing email security. In this regard, regular monitoring and updates to DMARC records contribute to staying ahead of evolving threats, while educating stakeholders about DMARC’s significance helps in mitigating the risks associated with email fraud.
Companies to Action
Forta: Fortra’s Advanced Email Security portfolio offers secure email gateway, API-based solutions, DMARC services, phishing simulations, training, and email triage. Solutions can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid setup, depending on the email platform.
Strengthening Security Awareness Training
Humans are often considered the weakest link in cybersecurity, as many email-based attacks exploit social engineering tactics to deceive users into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. To address this vulnerability, comprehensive security awareness training plays a crucial role in mitigating these risks.
Best Practice: Organizations are realizing the importance of regularly conducting security awareness training that addresses the latest phishing tactics and social engineering methods. They are increasingly taking the help of simulated phishing attacks to test and reinforce employee vigilance, fostering a culture where users are trained to question unexpected emails, even from trusted sources.
Companies to action
Hornetsecurity: Hornetsecurity’s patented spear phishing engine delivers customized phishing simulations tailored to each employee’s needs. Its permission management service for Microsoft 365 equips chief information security officer (CISOs) with user-friendly governance, risk, and compliance capabilities.
Are you adopting the right strategies to integrate AI-driven and API-based email security solutions for comprehensive protection?
To learn more about lucrative growth opportunities in email security industry, click here
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