Sandboxing

What is Sandboxing?

Sandboxing is a cybersecurity technique that provides an isolated test environment on a network to inspect incoming suspicious files or code, so that they don’t cause damage to the host system or network.

SpamTitan sandboxing is a powerful next-gen sandbox spam filtering solution that protects against advanced, sophisticated attacks via email. Our solution is packed with award-winning machine learning and behavioral analysis technologies, enabling your security team to safely detonate suspicious files in a secure environment that mirrors your production endpoints, tricking cyber attackers into believing they have reached their target. It is a safe space, where if a threat arises in the test environment, it won’t affect your host network.

Sandboxing provides an extra layer of protection against malware, spear-phishing, advanced persistent threats (APTs), and offers insight into new threats that would have arisen without being examined in isolation.

Sandboxing is particularly effective defending against zero-day threats. While traditional email filters scan email for known suspicious activity, they are unable to threat previously undetected threats – of which there are dozens created on a daily basis. With sandboxing any email that passes an email filter and contains unknown links can be isolated and tested before they reach your network

How does Sandboxing work?

Sandboxing works by isolating suspicious code from the rest of the organizations’ environment and by proactively executing, or detonating, the code in a safe and contained virtual environment, without compromising your operating system or host devices.

SpamTitan Sandboxing

Whereas traditional email filters are only programmed to detect previously identified threats, the SpamTitan sandboxing service uses powerful emulation tools to ensure that files are inspected using real-time intelligence along with comprehensive detection techniques that provides advanced threat protection and zero-day exploit detection.

Files accessed by end users are first analyzed with our award-winning anti-malware technologies. Strong machine learning, static analysis and behavior detection technologies ensure that only files that require further analysis get sent to the sandbox. Sandboxed email filtering scans incoming email on the server and quarantines it in a safe place away from user access. The quarantined area is usually a network drive with only administrator access or a directory on the local email server. This directory is sandboxed from other sections of server resources where administrators can review content.

All results are checked across known threats in an extensive array of online repositories, and all in just a few minutes. The SpamTitan sandboxing feature is powered by Bitdefender. If the verdict is malicious, the sandboxing service updates Bitdefender’s Global Protective Network (cloud threat intelligence service), ensuring that the new threat is blocked globally, and the service does not have to detonate the same file again

The Benefits of Sandboxing

Sandboxing has a number of advantages:

• It detects advanced attacks early and prevents breaches, reducing incident response costs and efforts
• It reduces threat-hunting burden – sandboxing prevents your operating systems from being exposed to potential threats.
• There is no conflict between the sandboxing environment and your operating system
• It greatly increases the detection rate of elusive threats in the pre-execution stage, including APTs, targeted attacks, evasion techniques, obfuscated malware, custom malware, and ransomware
• It ensures continuous protection and maximum performance against rapidly evolving advanced threats.
• If you have existing email filtering solutions in place, sandboxing functions as a complementary solution - providing you with even more added protection.

Implementing Sandboxing

From phishing attempts to malicious attachments, email servers are always under attack, and keeping malicious content completely out of a user’s inbox is a necessity for all organizations. Without sandboxing, many malicious campaigns can still end up in a user’s spam folder and as a result employees are at a greater risk of falling for a malicious email campaign from an attacker.

Two common attacks using email include malicious attachments and phishing emails that trick users into opening a link that points to an attacker-controlled site. By sandboxing these emails, an administrator greatly reduces the ability for these emails to reach the targeted user’s inbox.

However false positives can occur – so instead of automatically deleting an email, a sandboxing system places content in a safe location where administrators can review the email messages and files. With an administrator review, the message is then sent to the user.

The Need for Sandboxing

Without a sandbox, you could either lose important emails to false negatives or risk having users open malicious content. With sandboxed email protection, administrators have more control of the type of content that reaches user inboxes. With email fraud on the rise, organizations need strong anti-malware and the facility to block harmful messages from ever reaching the end users inbox. An email security system that includes sandboxing can do this for you, and successful attacks will be greatly reduced.

SpamTitan sandboxing achieves the highest detection rates due to its global threat intelligence gathered from the 500+ million endpoints it helps to protect.

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"SpamTitan just works! It fulfills all expectations and allows us to spend more time on development and new things, rather than dealing with spam all the time!" 

Prime Insurance Co

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