Cyberattacks on Office 365 users are increasing and Office 365 email security controls are not preventing account compromises at many businesses. If you want to block phishing and malware attacks and prevent costly data breaches, there is no better time than the present to improve Office 365 email security.
Microsoft Office 365 – An Attractive Target for Cybercriminals
Microsoft’s figures suggest there are now more than 70 million active users of Office 365 making it the most widely adopted enterprise cloud service by some distance. 78% of IT decision makers say they have already signed up to Office 365 or plan to do so in 2017 and Microsoft says it is now signing up a further 50,000 small businesses to Office 365 every month. 70% of Fortune 500 companies are already using Office 365 and the number of enterprises transitioning to Office 365 is likely to significantly increase.
Office 365 offers many advantages for businesses but as the number of users grows, the platform becomes and even bigger target for hackers. Hackers are actively seeking flaws in Office 365 and users of the service are increasingly coming under attack. The more users an operating system or service has, the more likely hackers are to concentrate their resources on developing new methods to attack that system.
Cyberattacks on Office 365 are Soaring
Microsoft is well aware of the problem. Its figures show that malware attacks on Office 365 users increased by a staggering 600% last year and a recent survey conducted by Skyhigh Networks showed 71.4% of Office 365 business users have to deal with at least one compromised email account every month. Surveys often overestimate security problems due to having a limited sample size. That is unlikely to be the case here. The survey was conducted on 27 million users of Office 365 and 600 enterprises.
The majority of new malware targets Windows systems simply because there are substantially more users of Windows than Macs. As Apple increases its market share, it becomes more profitable to develop malware to attack MacOS. Consequently, MacOS malware is becoming more common. The same is true for Office 365. More users means successful attacks are much more profitable. If a flaw is found and a new attack method developed, it can be used on millions of users, making searching for flaws and developing exploits well worth the time and effort.
Phishers and hackers are also studying how the security functions of O365 work and are searching for flaws and developing exploits to take advantage. For a few dollars a month, hackers can sign up for accounts to study Office 365. Hackers are also taking advantage of poor password choices to gain access to other users’ accounts to trial their phishing campaigns to ensure they bypass Office 365 email security controls.
Office 365 Email Security Controls are Often Lacking
Given the resources available to Microsoft and its frequent updates, you would expect Office 355 email security to be pretty good. While Office 365 email security is not terrible, for standard users it is not great either. Standard subscriptions include scant security features. To get enhanced security, the enterprise subscription must be purchased or extra email security add-ons must be purchased separately at a not insignificant cost.
Pay for the enterprise subscription and you will get a host of extra security features provided through the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) security package. This includes message sandboxing, phishing protection, URL tracking and reporting, and link reputation checking. Even when Advanced Threat Protection is used, getting the settings right to maximize protection is not always straightforward.
APT will certainly improve email security, but it is worth bearing in mind that hackers can also sign up for those features and have access to the sandbox. That makes it easier for them to develop campaigns that bypass Office 365 security protections.
Even with both layers of security, the level of protection against malware and phishing is only OK. A 2017 study by SE Labs revealed that even with Microsoft’s Exchange Online Protection and Advanced Threat Protection enabled, email security only achieved a similar score to solutions in the low-middle level of the market. Far lower than the level of protection provided by advanced third party email spam filters such as SpamTitan that work alongside Office 365 to provide even greater protection from malicious email threats.
The Cost of Mitigating an Cybersecurity Incident is Considerable
The cost of mitigating a cyberattack can be considerable, and certainly substantially more than the cost of prevention. The Ponemon Institute/IBM Security 2017 Cost of a Data Breach study shows the average cost of mitigating a cyberattack is $3.62 million.
The recent NotPetya and WannaCry attacks also highlighted the high cost of breach mitigation. The NotPetya attack on Maersk, for example, has been estimated to cost the company up to $300 million, the vast majority of which could have been saved if the patches released by Microsoft in March had been applied promptly.
These large companies can absorb the cost of mitigating cyberattacks to a certain extent, although smaller businesses simply do not have the funds. It is no therefore no surprise that 60% of SMBs end up permanently closing their doors within 6 months of experiencing a cyberattack. Even cash-strapped businesses should be able to afford to improve security to prevent email-based attacks – The most common vector used by cybercriminals to gain access to systems and data.
Increase Office Email 365 Security with a Specialist Email Security Solution
No system can be made totally impervious to hackers and remain usable, but it is possible to improve Office 365 email security and reduce the potential for attacks to an minimal level. To do that, many enterprises are turning to third-party solution providers – specialists in email security – to increase Office 365 email security instead of paying extra for the protection offered by APT.
According to figures from Gartner, an estimated 40% of Microsoft Office 365 deployments will incorporate third-party tools by the end of 2018 with the figure predicted to rise to half of all deployments by 2020.
One of the best ways of improving Office 365 email security is to use an advanced, comprehensive email spam filtering solution developed by a specialist in email security, TitanHQ.
TitanHQ’s SpamTitan offers excellent protection against email-based attacks. The solution has also been developed to perfectly compliment Office 365 to block more attacks and keep inboxes spam and malware free. SpamTitan filters out more than 99.97% of spam and malicious emails, giving businesses the extra level of protection they need. Furthermore, it is also one of the most cost-effective enterprise email security solutions for Office 365 on the market.
SpamTitan Offers Defense In Depth for Office 365 Users
Even with Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, there are areas where Office 365 does not perform well. According to a study by Osterman Research, Office 365 is capable of blocking all known malware threats. The solution is nowhere near as effective at blocking new malware variants, which are constantly being released. When these new threats are detected and the signatures are added to the database, the threats can be blocked. Until that point, users will be vulnerable. SpamTitan on the other hand is capable of detecting and blocking new malware threats. SpamTitan is able to anticipate new attacks thanks to pattern learning and intelligence. These predictive capabilities ensures protection against the latest malware variants that signature-based email security solutions fail to detect. By using Bayesian analysis, heuristics and machine learning, new types of spear phishing, whaling, and zero day attacks can be detected and blocked that would otherwise be delivered to inboxes.
SpamTitan includes URL reputation analysis to assess all embedded hyperlinks in an email, including shortened URLs. SURBL filtering and URL detection mechanisms offer superior protection against malicious links contained in emails. Heuristics are used to identify phishing emails from message headers and are constantly updated to detect the latest emerging threats. SpamTitan also includes a greylisting option. Greylisting involves the rejection of all messages along with a request for the message to be resent. Most email servers respond and redeliver messages quickly. Email servers used for spamming are usually busy and these requests are ignored. This is included as an optional feature in SpamTitan, and can be used in combination with whitelists to ensure trusted senders’ messages are always delivered without any delay. Spam confidence levels can be set by user, user group or domain and the solution integrates with Active Directory and LDAP for easy synchronization.
These combinations of features provide superior protection against phishing, spear phishing, ransomware, malware, BEC, impersonation, and zero-day attacks via email, ensuring businesses are protected and messages do not reach end users’ inboxes.
To find out more about SpamTitan and how it can improve Microsoft Office 365 email security at your business, contact TitanHQ today.
MSPs Can Profit from Providing Additional Office 365 Email Security
The days when MSPs could offer out of the box email services to clients and make big bucks are sadly gone. MSPs can sell Office 365 subscriptions to their clients, but the margins are small and there is little money to be made. However, there are good opportunities for selling support services for MS products and also for providing enhanced email security for Office 365 users.
SpamTitan can be sold as an add-on service to enhance security for clients subscribing to Office 365, and since the solution is easy to implement and has a very low management overhead, it allows MSPs to easily boost monthly revenues.
SpamTitan can also be provided in white label form; ready to accept MSP branding. The solution can even be hosted within an MSPs infrastructure. On top of that, there are generous margins for MSPs.
With SpamTitan it is easy for MSPs to provide valued added service, enhance Office 365 email services, and improve Microsoft Office 365 email security for all customers.
To find out more about how you can partner with SpamTitan and improve Office 365 email security for your customers, contact the MSP Sales team at TitanHQ today.