Email Security

Keeping your emails safe

Regardless of industry, most businesses use email as their primary mode of communication, not just with workers but also with external parties such as suppliers and customers. Despite their widespread use, emails are not inherently secure.

Email systems were not designed to handle the complex dangers that are present in today’s digital world. They were created to be an open communication method in which information is conveyed in plain text without any safeguards. Because emails may be accessed and manipulated by anybody, this raises serious security problems. This is when email security comes into play.

Email security refers to the many measures that must be put in place to secure email accounts and the material they contain against unauthorized access, loss, or compromise.

Despite the fact that email security is fundamentally unsafe, technologies such as password encryption and two-factor authentication (2FA) were developed as solutions to protect vital and sensitive information.

Why Email Security is Important?

Email is the source of more than 90% of targeted security risks, and the number of these attacks is growing. According to the State of Email Security 2020 Report, 77% of respondents are adopting a personal cyber resilience plan. In comparison, just 62% of South African organizations are actively doing so, despite 47% anticipating an email-borne cyberattack. This underscores the need of developing your own email security plan.

When many individuals consider the threat to their email, they instantly think of malware.

Email security vulnerabilities may take many different shapes. Even if your company is safeguarded against malicious software meant to disrupt your network, cyber criminals are innovative in their methods of causing security problems. Unfortunately, the majority of the assaults are the result of social engineering.

What is Social Engineering?

As humans, it’s in our nature to want to trust other people. Social engineering takes advantage of this trust by using psychological tricks to get people to share private or sensitive information.

This method can be used to get different kinds of information. But when cybercriminals target you, they usually trick you into giving them private information like your bank account information, passwords, or information that can help them get into your computer or network.

Once they have access to your network in particular, they will be able to install programs that give them full control over your devices. The hacker could then read your emails, look at your business’s financial records, steal the identities of your employees, or do anything else they could think of.

Identity theft is a big problem because it could lead to a case of fraud against your business. And identity theft isn’t the only thing you need to worry about. Hackers could pretend to be people you trust, like a company executive, and send you fake bills or start an emergency EFT payment. If you don’t notice, your business could lose a lot of money and trust if you don’t fix the problem.

Features of Email Security Solutions

If you haven’t considered or implemented email security protocols to protect your business, here are five key features to think about:

Anti-phishing policies

Phishing is a cyber-attack that is rooted in emails, aimed at getting your data and passwords. When your business communication is protected by Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection, you will have access to anti-phishing tools, like. machine learning models which carefully examine incoming emails for pre-determined phishing indicators. These models analyse message content, and take appropriate action based on configured policies drafted to protect you.

Anti-Spoofing Protection

Spoofed emails use fake addresses that feature no mechanism for authentication, and are often used for spamming. Microsoft’s Exchange Online Protection (EOP) includes excellent cyber security features to protect your business from spoofed email senders. The three key features of EOP are spoof intelligence, anti-spoofing policies, and email authentication.

  • Spoof intelligence lets you review spoofed messages from internal and external senders and gives you the option to allow or block the sender.
  • Anti-spoofing policies allow you to turn spoof intelligence on or off, and choose specific actions that must be taken for blocked senders.
  • Email authentication is an integral part of anti-spoofing policies. It is the process of validating messages that claim to be genuine members from your domain using the SPF, DMARC, DKIM, and records in DNS.

Safe Attachments & Links

The Safe Attachments feature is designed to check if any incoming emails contain attachments that could cause a malware or virus attack. All email messages and attachments that contain viruses or malware are directed to a special environment where various machine learning and analysis procedures and techniques are used by ATP to learn about malicious intent.

The message is released for delivery to the receiver’s mailbox only if no suspicious activity is detected. ATP Safe Links automatically blocks any malicious looking content in emails and Microsoft Office Documents, while allowing valid links to be accessed as normal.

Detect and block advanced threats in real-time

Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection allows you to create powerful reports using the “Real-Time Detection” feature. This helps your security team to identify and respond to threats in real-time. With this report, you can review the list of malwares detected, view phishing URLs, allow or block addresses, investigate emails with malware, and more.

Protect sensitive emails using encryption

Microsoft Office 365 Message Encryption allows you to protect sensitive emails by encrypting email messages that are sent to and from your organisation. This feature helps you stay in control and enhances email security.