WHY EMAIL SECURITY NEEDS TO BE ONE OF YOUR COMPANY’S MAIN PRIORITIES

WHY EMAIL SECURITY NEEDS TO BE ONE OF YOUR COMPANY’S MAIN PRIORITIES

Any good IT security strategy is multi-layered, but certain areas need top priority. Email security is one of these for multiple reasons.

Email remains the main way that companies communicate within their organization and with customers. This means it’s the main data transmission channel with all types of sensitive information being sent and received.

Another way that email is prominent is that it’s the main entry point for phishing attacks. Phishing is responsible for the vast majority of malware infections and data breaches. It remains so popular because it exploits human error.

Within the past year, 73% of surveyed companies have suffered a data breach that was caused by a phishing attack.

Data leakage (the accidental exposure of sensitive data) is also most prevalent in emails. Users will send plain text emails containing everything from their login password for Microsoft 365 to a spreadsheet full of customer payment details and PII (personally identifiable information).

Any email security strategy needs to look at all areas of how a business uses email and put security systems in place that can automate protection for users and data.

Unbound Digital helps customers do this through Proofpoint and its robust set of network and email security protections that are people-based.

WHAT DOES A SOLID EMAIL SECURITY STRATEGY NEED? 

One reason we offer Proofpoint for phishing security, antivirus, and email encryption is that it approaches email security from the point of the user. That’s exactly what’s needed to combat phishing attacks because the user is what those campaigns are targeting.

People are the new network perimeter due to the many cloud systems that companies use. It’s typically a user password that is all that’s protecting a critical business system.

Many phishing emails are designed to go after user credentials through sophisticated scams that include spoofed login pages for popular websites and spoofed email addresses.

Here are some of the protection areas that Proofpoint provides and that any company needs to include for a robust email security strategy.

PHISHING PREVENTION

Phishing is coming into corporate networks at an increasingly rapid pace. In May of 2021 alone, phishing attacks rose by 440%. It’s important to detect and quarantine as many of those malicious emails as possible.

You want a system that can become smarter the more emails it filters, which is what AI-based systems do. They learn to detect common patterns in messages as well as use sender verification to tag senders that could be suspicious.

The fewer phishing emails that make it into user inboxes, the lower your risk that one will fool one of your team members.

ANTIVIRUS/ANTIMALWARE 

No device should be without antivirus software and one that can catch zero-day threats. Antivirus/anti-malware protection is designed to scan email inboxes for any potentially dangerous attachments and protect the user from that content.

A benefit of using Proofpoint is that it includes multilayered analysis of messages, including reputation analysis. It also has a sandbox environment, which is becoming a must these days for catching zero-day threats that haven’t yet been seen.

Sandboxing includes having an environment that simulates the computer but is completely cut off from your systems. The sandbox tricks the code in an email attachment into thinking it’s already made it past the system defenses so it will start executing. When this happens, the activity is cataloged, and the threat is instantly neutralized.

With the prevalence of URLs being used instead of email attachments in most phishing attacks, you also want to ensure your antivirus can detect and neutralize links to malicious sites by rewriting them before they get to the user.

EMAIL ENCRYPTION

With the amount of information being sent via email, it’s important to have the ability to encrypt messages containing sensitive or confidential information. If email isn’t encrypted, then anyone can intercept it and read all the contents.

Email encryption encrypts both the email message and any attachments. So, if the email were to be intercepted, the hacker would not be able to read any of the information because they would not have access to the decryption key.

This is an important way to prevent data leakage and help backstop users that might accidentally send things like passwords or a company credit card number over a plain text email.

When automation is put in place along with encryption, you can have a system that is smart enough to recognize sensitive information in an email and automatically encrypt it based on certain keywords.

LEARN MORE ABOUT PROOFPOINT & IMPROVE YOUR EMAIL SECURITY

Shoring up your email security can significantly reduce your risk of a costly data breach or malware infection. Unbound Digital can give your Johnson City, Tennessee business a Proofpoint email security demo and answer all your questions.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 423-335-2461 or reach us online.