Achieving Business Email Security for Small Businesses

Phishing and social engineering are two of the biggest threats to organizations, especially if their employees communicate via email messages with customers on the internet. Some organizations attempt to use cybersecurity training to stop common email-based attacks, but this approach does not eliminate human error. In fact, cybersecurity training is said to have a minimal impact on risk mitigation for phishing, and even large tech giants have fallen to sophisticated email-based attacks. The only effective approach is to stop messages from reaching an intended victim.

Six Billion Phishing Attacks Occur Every Year

Numerous threats and strategies are available to attackers, but phishing is popular for its easier delivery, the ability for attackers to use a system commonly understood with minimal technical skills, and its popularity in business environments. Studies show that 83% of businesses experience a sophisticated phishing attack and 15 billion spam emails are sent every day.

The same studies show that 42% of employees admit to clicking on a link from an unknown sender or downloading content that could be malicious. Even with cybersecurity training, employees are still at risk of human error, and it only takes one mistake to destroy business environments. After one successful attack, the business environment is vulnerable to additional ransomware, data theft, or account takeovers.

Advanced persistent threats are also possible with a successful phishing attack. An advanced persistent threat (APT) performs several actions to ensure that administrators are unable to remove it entirely from their business environment. An advanced persistent threat might copy itself to a directory, install backdoors, or takeover additional accounts silently so that it remains on the network even after the initial threat is removed.

Most concerning for organizations is the rise in ransomware incidents. Many of the current phishing attacks combine ransomware as their payload. Ransomware has devastating effects on business continuity, productivity, and revenue. Past ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations have forced hospitals to return to pen and paper to do business, and global attacks rendered several government agencies to cease operations for long periods of time.

Just a single successful account takeover can take months for organizations to detect and contain, and then the consequences come. Businesses must investigate the level of damage and data loss. After investigations, the business must report to customers as a matter of compliance. Compliance regulations require businesses to report personally identifiable information (PII) data loss to consumers or risk hefty fines. Any mistakes in the way an organization manages compliant infrastructure also leaves the organization at risk, which means that managed service providers handling customers in specific industries must take specific precautions when provisioning cybersecurity infrastructure.

As more users work from home and organizations adopt an at-home workforce, it’s more difficult for organizations to implement cybersecurity infrastructure. The cloud is a viable option, including email servers. Email servers hosted in the cloud make it more convenient to configure and deploy email solutions, but it means that servers are no longer hosted in-house and need advanced cybersecurity infrastructure to protect from malicious threat actors.

 

Basic Email Security is Not Enough

Traditionally, basic spam filters were enough to protect against unwanted email messages, but it’s no longer effective against malicious threats. Spam messages unnecessarily deplete server storage, and basic email security does not detect sophisticated attacks with embedded links or strategic attachments. Common Word or Excel attachments can contain malicious macros that deliver ransomware and other malware, but they are also necessary to do business internally and pass legitimate documents to customers and vendors.

Some businesses attempt to mitigate risks by using third-party vendor security such as Office 365 or Google Business Suite. While these platforms have advantages over basic provider email filters, they still do not cover sophisticated attacks. It’s possible to bypass platform security and perform account takeovers with the right strategy.

As an example, suppose that your employee is active on social media. An attacker will research social media for vulnerable employees and find their business account email address. Instead of sending bulk email often filtered out, the attacker sends a phishing message directly to the targeted victim using a clean email account. Platforms do not perform effective scanning of message content, so a direct targeted message using spear-phishing strategies will pass to the user’s inbox.

Spear-phishing with sophisticated strategies will bypass platform security, so having these systems in place do not effectively block attacks. Messages get through to targeted victim email inboxes, and it just takes one successful message to put your organization at risk. You need security that scans messages for a variety of triggers and uses artificial intelligence to identify common factors.

In addition to better security, an organization needs a way to view reports and identify false positives so that the artificial intelligence algorithms can be better configured and trained. A low false positive rate is essential in effective email cybersecurity to build trust in not just users but administrators as well. Poor cybersecurity strategies lead to users bypassing it and administrators turning off controls, which increases risks.

For managed service providers, finding the right email security should be a priority. Every customer will be a target for phishing, and poor email security will lead to an eventual compromise. The best solution for multi-customer support is deploying email servers in the cloud and using cloud-based email security to centralize where all customer email filters can be configured. Cloud-based email security also centralizes where emails are scanned and quarantined, and it makes it easier to deploy the right solutions.

 

Managed Service Providers Need Security Tools for Customer Convenience and Effectiveness

Usually, cybersecurity and convenience are always at odds with one another. A managed service provider (MSP) is always battling good cybersecurity while still maintaining customer satisfaction. Cybersecurity must be effective to avoid leaving customers vulnerable to major threats such as phishing and social engineering, but strategies and tools that inhibit customers from doing their job will lead to dissatisfaction and possible client retention issues.

With TitanHQ SpamTitan, MSPs have an effective tool that can be provisioned within a few minutes and provide cloud-based security across all customer environments. SpamTitan offers a few benefits for MSPs so that they can better serve their customers. Benefits include:

• Advanced phishing detection stops whaling and spear phishing targeting specific high-privileged users.
• Allow and block lists that allow for blacklisting and whitelisting specific senders.
• An additional layer covering Microsoft Office 365 email platforms to stop malware and phishing that can bypass standard included security.
• Protection from zero-day threats never seen in the wild yet.
• Stay compliant with SpamTitan data loss prevention (DLP) rules.
• MSP custom policies let you configure SpamTitan with unique settings specific to every customer.
• Scan outgoing messages to stop customer employees from sending sensitive data to attackers.
• Stop email messages with malicious script and executable attachments.
• Sandboxing to allow administrator review of messages without risking a compromise from malicious scripts.
• Reporting tools for MSPs to deliver updates to customers and review any suspicious email activity.

Using TitanHQ SpamTitan, MSPs can block phishing, spam, malware, viruses, ransomware, and any other email-based threat targeting customers. Blocking these threats is imperative for organization data loss prevention and compliance to avoid losing sensitive information to attackers.

As new threats emerge, TitanHQ continues to update its cloud-based security to ensure that MSPs and enterprise customers get the best of artificial intelligence attack detection. Threat actors will always change the way that they launch attacks, so you need email cybersecurity that continues to evolve with the latest strategies.