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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Why Is Email Sandboxing Essential?

Hackers continuously change tactics to guarantee success rates of cyber-attacks. Cybercriminals can evade detection by changing tactics, vectors, and technologies; security solutions must always keep pace with these evolving cyber threats. Email security gateways, such as SpamTitan, use multiple layers of techniques to identify and eliminate spam and malicious email. However, even the most advanced email protection systems could miss specific emerging email-borne attacks. This is where email sandboxing becomes essential. Email sandboxing is a form of Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), acting as a sink for any potentially missed email-borne cyber-threats; incoming emails and attachments are analyzed using layers of analytical tools, this includes intelligent technologies driven by AI and machine learning, as well as abnormal behavioral analysis.

The first layers of detection will catch the most malicious or spam emails. Then, however, a few remaining suspicious emails will be placed into a protected area or ATP "sandbox" to test them further. This sandbox environment is an isolated area where these tests can be carried out without any worries about accidentally infecting the corporate network and devices. This essential specialized protective layer is why SpamTitan effectively captures email-borne threats.

Why Chose SpamTitan for Email Sandboxing

SpamTitan receives regular awards for the best email security solution; the people who use SpamTitan are the best advocates for the ease of use and effectiveness of the email security provided by SpamTitan.

One reason for such great reviews is the increasingly fine-grained detection when emails enter or leave the corporate email servers that SpamTitan uses to capture 99.99% of spam. During this time, careful analysis of emails and attachments is used to weed out the most obvious candidates for removal. These spam or phishing emails are never allowed to enter employee inboxes. However, a mechanism must exist to mop up any potentially missed malicious emails. This mechanism is essential as hackers change tactics to evade detection and evolve threats. SpamTitan works by placing emails into an isolated area for deep analysis. This area is the sandbox environment, where the suspicious files can be tested using various techniques, including opening emails, running payloads, and following email links. Again, this is done in isolation, removing the risk of malware infection or employees entering login credentials and other data into phishing websites.

 

How SpamTitan Email Sandbox Works

SpamTitan applies a robust anti-virus engine, AI-enabled behavior analysis, and heuristics to determine if an attachment or email should be sent to the sandbox. If the decision to isolate the files is favorable, the following steps are taken to isolate, analyze, and detonate a malicious file:  

1. The email is first checked by the existing layers of protection offered by SpamTitan. If the email is suspicious but not stopped by these security layers, the email and attachment are uploaded to the sandbox for review.
2. Suspicious files are analyzed by email opening and then detonating potential payloads in an isolated cloud platform or a secure customer virtual environment. 
3. If the sandbox detects a malware, the email is blocked as a virus and assigned ATP.Sandbox. The message will be listed under "Viruses" in the relevant quarantine report.
4. SpamTitan checks the sandbox every fifteen seconds to see if the analysis is complete. Employees will see a message delivery status in History as "Sent to Sandbox."
5. After twenty minutes of interrogation, the file is marked "clean, and the email is passed onto the recipient.

Machine learning and behavioral heuristic models are used to detect even the most sophisticated of threats. Threat containment is optimized with minimal (0.003%) false positives.

Risks of not Sandboxing Email

Layered email security provided by advanced anti-spam and anti-phishing solutions captures most malicious emails and attachments. However, the cybercriminal community continuously updates its techniques, so a sandbox is a way to capture new and emerging cyber threats. For example, zero-day threats are unlikely to be identified using layers such as blocklists. These sorts of emerging and new threats need deeper analysis. If your organization does not have access to an email sandbox, you won'twon't be able to test suspicious or unknown emails and attachments safely. Because SpamTitan applies email sandbox technology to ensure that every malicious email is thoroughly checked, our spam catch rate is 99.99%.

Advantages of Email Sandboxing

By using a sandbox to capture obfuscated and emerging email-borne threats, your organization reduces the risk that your company will become infected with malware. As 90% of data breaches begin with a phishing email, stopping malicious emails from entering an employee's workspace is essential in creating a positive and effective security posture.

 

Disadvantages of Email Sandboxing

Email sandboxes can be complex to configure and run: sandboxes can be time-consuming and potentially costly. SpamTitan has an integrated sandbox tool part of Bitdefender's Global Protective Network. This is an easy-to-use service and is designed to be cost-effective. 

The sandbox could be circumvented: cybercriminals work to build malware and phishing emails that evade detection. As cybercriminals become aware of email sandboxing, they may develop techniques to avoid detection in a sandbox environment, i.e., by detecting that the phishing email has been placed into a sandbox environment and changing the behavior to make the email dormant in the sandbox but activate on a device. To help prevent this evasion tactic, SpamTitan uses advanced intelligent technologies, such as AI, to predict and prevent advanced threats.

Delays to legitimate email: sandboxing emails means that emails must be sent to a particular area for tests before release. This does cause a delay in some legitimate emails reaching their intended audience. However, SpamTitan's multiple layers of security, coupled with our sophisticated sandbox technology, means that only specific and dangerous emails will be sandboxed. Even if a legitimate email lands in a sandbox, the delivery delay will be, at most, twenty minutes.

False positives: false positives are a concern for organizations implementing a sandbox, the worry being that important emails could end up sandboxed. However, SpamTitan quarantines emails before deletion, allowing an administrator to check their validity.

 

"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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Email Sandboxing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is email sandboxing?

Email sandboxing protects against breaches and data loss from zero-day threats and sophisticated email attacks by providing a powerful environment to run in-depth, sophisticated analysis of unknown or suspicious programs and files. Email sandboxing provides protection against malware, phishing, advanced persistent threats (APTs).

How does email sandboxing work?

Email sandboxing works by isolating suspicious code from the rest of the organizations’ environment and by proactively executing the code in a safe, tightly controlled virtual environment, without compromising your operating system or host devices. With sandboxed email protection, administrators have more control of the type of content that reaches user inboxes.

What is an email sandbox?

An email sandbox is an important security solution to protect your organization against known threats, zero-day attacks and advanced threats. An email sandbox is an isolated environment where potentially unsafe programs, files and code can be executed without affecting network resources or local applications. As email is the leading vector for cyber-attacks, a sandbox will help you fight malware, ransomware, spyware and other dangerous threat vectors.

Why do I need an email sandbox?

An email sandbox adds a layer of protection to capture difficult-to-detect malicious and spam emails. Once isolated in a sandbox, this secure environment allows deep analysis of suspicious emails and attachments to be carried out. If the email is found to be malicious, it is swiftly detonated. Safe emails are quickly sent to the recipient (s).

How an email sandbox works?

A suspicious email is sent to the sandbox before being released or securely removed. The sandbox is a protected area to analyze these emails for malware or malicious links to phishing sites. Once in an isolated sandbox, the email can be opened, attachments opened, payloads run, and UTLs checked. Dangerous emails are reviewed in this isolated environment without endangering the corporate network and devices. If an email is deemed safe, it will be quickly passed on to the correct recipient.

Sandboxing security

Sandboxes are a secure area where emails can be assessed for malicious intent. The security of a sandbox is based on the following: Isolation from the network to allow safe interrogation of the email content and attachments. An anti-malware engine to detect known threats. Advanced detection capabilities: SpamTitan sandboxing machine learning uses global threat intelligence gathered from the 500+ million endpoints to detect zero-day and emerging threats.

Sandboxing solutions

Advanced email gateways come with sandboxing solutions. The sandbox is an essential component of Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). When evaluating an email security solution for phishing and spam protection, choosing an email security solution that provides an email sandbox is essential. With this capability, the email security solution can prevent advanced and emerging malicious emails and payloads designed to evade multi-layered email security services.