WATERTOWN, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mimecast
has announced two new measures designed to protect against
spear-phishing. Attachment Protect and user awareness enhancements
reduce the threat from malware-laden attachments, and help IT teams
improve employee security awareness. They join Mimecast Targeted Threat
Protection – URL Protect to give customers a comprehensive line of
defense against the key technical and human risks from spear-phishing in
one cloud-based service.
Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection – Attachment Protect reduces
the threat from weaponized or malware-laden attachments used in
spear-phishing and other advanced attacks. It includes pre-emptive
sandboxing to automatically security check email attachments before they
are delivered to employees. Attachments are opened in a virtual
environment or sandbox, isolated from the corporate email system,
security checked and passed on to the employee only if no threat is
detected.
Attachment Protect also includes the option of an innovative
transcription service that automatically converts attachments into a
safe file format, neutralizing malware as it does so. The attachment is
delivered to the employee in read-only format without any delay. As most
attachments are read rather than edited by employees, this is often
sufficient. Should the employee need to edit the attachment, they can
request it is sandboxed on-demand and delivered in the original file
format.
Neil Murray, chief technology officer at Mimecast, commented, “A new
generation of services are needed to tackle spear-phishing. Firstly it
was about stopping URL links to malicious websites. Now sandboxing has
become a critical technical defense in the ongoing war on advanced
attacks. But there have been attacks that recognize an attachment is
held in a sandbox so the malware doesn’t deploy to avoid detection.
Traditional sandboxing also delays email delivery, which may raise
productivity concerns, and is expensive. So organizations often limit
the use of sandboxes to contain the cost and only protect high profile
or at risk employees, leaving the wider organization vulnerable to
attack.
“With Attachment Protect we have addressed these limitations by
creating a cost-effective layered defense to help protect against
malicious attachments. The integration of a pre-emptive sandbox, a
virtually instant transcription service with on-demand sandboxing, and
URL protection, now makes it easy and affordable to protect every
employee from the growing threat of spear-phishing.”
Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection – URL Protect offers
click-time protection and now includes innovative user awareness
capabilities so IT teams can raise the security awareness of employees.
Once enabled, a percentage of links in emails clicked by an employee
will open a warning screen. This will provide them more information on
the email and destination, prompting them to consider if the page is
safe. If they choose to continue, their opinion is logged, URL Protect
scans the link and blocks access if the destination is unsafe. IT
administrators can set how frequently these awareness prompts are shown
to ensure employee caution is maintained. Repeat offenders that click
bad links will get more frequent prompts automatically until their
behavior changes. The IT team can track employee behavior from the
Mimecast administration console and target additional security training
as required.
Murray continues: “Technology is only part of your defense against
spear-phishing and other security threats for that matter. A
comprehensive strategy requires employee education. Organizations need
to improve employee skills and vigilance, and turn them into a human
firewall that can thwart the scammers and hackers. But traditional IT
training is ineffective, time consuming and ultimately unable to keep up
with advanced security threats that change all the time. Organizing
spoof spear-phishing attacks to catch out employees is time consuming,
disruptive and resented by those who are exposed and it also needs
repeating regularly. These approaches change behavior for short periods
but can be easily forgotten. URL Protect puts targeted security
information on screen at the time of the actual click and this ensures
employees keep thinking and learning about the risks.”
About Mimecast
Mimecast makes business email and data safer for more than 13,000
customers and millions of employees worldwide. Founded in 2003, the
company’s cloud-based security, archiving and continuity services
protect email, and deliver comprehensive email risk management in a
single, fully-integrated subscription service. Mimecast reduces email
risk and the complexity and cost of managing the array of point
solutions traditionally used to protect email and its data. For
customers that have migrated to cloud services like Microsoft Office
365, Mimecast mitigates single vendor exposure by strengthening security
coverage, combating downtime and improving archiving.
Mimecast Email Security helps protect against malware, spam, advanced
phishing and other emerging attacks, while preventing data leaks.
Mimecast Mailbox Continuity allows employees to continue using email
during planned and unplanned outages. Mimecast Enterprise Information
Archiving unifies email, file and Instant Messaging data to support
e-discovery and give employees fast access to their personal archive via
PC, Mac and mobile apps.
Mimecast Social Media Resources
- LinkedIn: Mimecast
- Facebook: Mimecast
- Twitter: @mimecast
-
Blog: Challenging
Complexity