A great many businesses would struggle to operate efficiently without productivity suites such as Microsoft 365, especially Microsoft’s cloud-based email solution. While Microsoft 365 email protection features are provided through Exchange Online Protection (EOP), a recent survey of users suggests 85% of companies have experienced an email data breach in the past 12 months so threats are clearly getting through to inboxes. While it is not possible to block all email attacks with technology, it is possible to greatly improve Microsoft 365 email protection by implementing a multi-layered email security solution on top of the Microsoft 365 email protection features provided by Microsoft through EOP.
Why Are Attacks on Microsoft 365 so Common?
Part of the problem is the success of Microsoft’s cloud-based platform. Well over 1 million companies worldwide use Microsoft 365, and that makes the platform a prime target for cyber threat actors. If they can find a way of bypassing Microsoft’s defenses, every business that uses Microsoft 365 can be attacked. An attacker can open their own account, test their campaigns to make sure they successfully bypass the defenses, and then when they have perfected their campaign, they can target businesses around the world. It also helps that the security system of Microsoft 365 is the same for all businesses and many businesses have not added additional email protection measures to improve on the basic level of protection against spam, malware, phishing, botnets, and ransomware provided by EOP.
Microsoft’s expertise is in operating systems, productivity software, and email, not cybersecurity. Microsoft’s EOP does not provide dynamic protection against constantly evolving threats and cannot block emerging attacks. EOP is not effective at blocking zero-day malware threats, only malware threats for which the malware signatures are known. EOP is also not effective at blocking more sophisticated phishing threats, such as those containing malicious URLs, and there is little scope for customization to meet the needs of businesses. Businesses need to augment the standard defenses by adding additional layers of protection on top of EOP, and the easiest way to do that is by using a more advanced email security solution.
Improve Microsoft 365 Email Protection with a Third-Party Email Security Solution
If you want to improve Microsoft 365 email protection, you should choose an email security solution from a cybersecurity vendor that adds multiple layers of protection on top of EOP. Many solutions replace EOP entirely, but the best approach is to choose a solution that augments, not replaces, the Microsoft 365 email protection features. You should look for a solution that works seamlessly with Microsoft 365, as many solutions are difficult to set up, configure and manage, especially for SMBs that lack in-house IT expertise.
You also need to choose a solution that bolsters protection in the areas that EOP performs poorly – Phishing detection, malicious URLs, and zero-day malware threats. For that, you need extensive threat intelligence, URL rewriting, behavioral detection of malware, and outbound scanning, and there is one solution that outperforms all others across these areas and that solution is SpamTitan Plus from TitanHQ.
SpamTitan Plus Microsoft 365 Email Protection
An email security solution is only as good as the threat intelligence that is fed into the solution. To protect against malicious URLs in phishing emails, speed is critical. When a new malicious IP address, domain, or URL is detected, that information needs to be immediately communicated to all users to protect them. SpamTitan plus provides unrivaled malicious URL protection as it includes 100% of ALL current market-leading anti-phishing feeds. That translates into a 1.5x increase in unique phishing URL detections and 1.6x faster detections than the current market leaders. SpamTitan Plus detects 10 million new, previously undiscovered phishing URLs every single day thanks to huge clickstream traffic from more than 600 million endpoints worldwide. It takes just 5 minutes from the initial detection to protect all users worldwide from the threat.
SpamTitan Plus inspects all URLs in emails and rewrites them to identify malicious links. If a link is deemed malicious, the user will not be permitted to visit the URL, and instead will be directed to a block page. Websites are subjected to multiple checks in real-time and all pages are evaluated, redirects are followed, and other dynamic checks are performed. In contrast to many email security solutions, SpamTitan Plus provides time-of-click protection and protects against URLs that are benign at the time of delivery but have malicious content added later.
Signature-based malware detection is important, which is why SpamTitan Plus (and other SpamTitan solutions) include dual anti-virus engines; but no signature-based AV engine will detect a new malware threat until its signature is loaded into the definition list. That is why SpamTitan solutions have email sandboxing. When an attachment passes the AV scans, it is sent to the sandbox for in-depth analysis of its behavior. That allows emerging threats to also be detected.
Get Cutting Edge Microsoft 365 Email Protection Today
SpamTitan Plus is TitanHQ’s flagship solution for protecting against email threats, but the SpamTitan suite includes products to suit businesses of all types and sizes, all of which will improve Microsoft 365 email protection and ensure more threats are blocked. TitanHQ also offers web filtering solutions to protect against Internet-based threats (WebTitan), email encryption for protecting against data loss in transit (EncryptTitan), email archiving for disaster recovery and compliance (ArcTitan), and comprehensive security awareness training for employees and phishing simulations (SafeTitan).
If you want to improve protection against the full range of cyberattacks, speak with TitanHQ today.