Сisco Secure Email Threat Defense is a cloud- based solution that leverages Cisco’s outstanding threat analytics, API-enabled architecture for faster threat response, full email visibility including internal communications, tools to automatically or manually eliminate threats in Microsoft 365 mailboxes and more. But why protect email at all? Isn’t the threat of email hacking exaggerated? Maybe this issue is relevant only for large corporations with multi-billion dollar budgets? Let’s look into it.
Relevance of threats
Many businesses have been migrating to a cloud since the mid 2010s. The COVID-19 pandemic largely accelerated this process: adapting to new requirements and market conditions, including the increased need for remote work, most businesses have moved a significant portion of their work tools to a cloud, if not all. Email has become one of the main components requiring migration to a cloud. There are many benefits to moving it to a cloud, from increased productivity and collaboration to the convenience of working remotely more efficiently. However, despite the convenience of this approach, there are also significant risks. Cloud email, with all its benefits, can make users, devices, data and the entire business vulnerable to attack. And this can be especially true for businesses that can’t afford expensive security equipment for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the size of the company has no impact on how likely that company is to be attacked. In fact, every company is vulnerable to cyberattacks: both small businesses, because they lack the security and protection resources that large enterprises have, and large companies, because they are a tidbit for hackers who can run multi-level covert attacks over a period of months. In support of this, here are some statistics. According to the 2020 Gartner’s Market Guide for Email Security, 71% of companies are using cloud or hybrid solutions. And according to Fundera, 43% of all attacks on businesses target SMEs, while 57% target large enterprises. As we can see, even the potential presence of specialized security equipment at large enterprises does not stop cybercriminals from attempting to hack large businesses. Email is one of the main channels hackers use to try to break into a corporate network. In fact, every email is a potential threat to the enterprise. And it is reliable email protection that is an important element in the cybersecurity strategy for any business. Here, we’ll explore the difficulties businesses face when it comes to securing their cloud email and how Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense can help solve them.
Problems and solutions
Despite the large number of various messengers and the growing popularity of teleconferences like Webex, email remains businesses’ main form of communication. It’s not surprising then that email is also the #1 threat vector: over 96% of all cyberattacks begin with email. As more businesses move their email to a cloud, attackers are moving there too, increasingly targeting cloud mailboxes. The email cloud platforms most impacted are of course the ones most used. As Microsoft Office 365 leads the way in cloud email and other productivity tools with more than 200 million monthly users, that makes them – and you – a major target. Microsoft Office 365 offers some built-in protection, but it’s not enough to fully secure your email. For example, this service lacks visibility into the internal emails sent across your office. As a result, emails with malware, phishing links, and other dynamic threats can circulate in the company for a long time, compromising its security. Ideally, your email security will stop threats before they reach the inbox. But given the limited resources of small businesses, it is hard and costly to build such a system. And large enterprises also often do not take into account the severity of email-borne threats, focusing on basic security systems that cannot always counter high-level threats, especially when it comes to a well-prepared attack. Therefore, Gartner recently recommended adding supplemental cloud-based security to protect the cloud mailboxes. These tools, known as ICES (integrated cloudbased email security), can eliminate gaps in the current security solutions by using a variety of threat intelligence to detect and remediate threats. According to Gartner, about 40% of Microsoft Office 365 customers will supplement their email security with a third-party solution in 2023. The key components of ICES protection, which combines on-premises and cloud-based email protection capabilities, include multiple security services to assess each of an email’s potentially harmful vectors (attachments, links and the message content itself), continual analysis (scanning of every email, including correspondence within the office), and automated tools to detect and remediate email-related threats locally and in the cloud.
Haknazar HALJANOV,
Director of “Döwletli Nesibe” Economic Society,
Coordinator of the Young Entrepreneurs Center
under the Ashgabat City Committee of the Party
of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan,
IT specialist.
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