Every day, three hundred and fifty billion emails are sent and received around the world. With so many messages to sift through, it's crucial to prepare for potential threats appearing in your inboxes.

Out of those emails, a significant portion of them contain damaging links, files, and threats that can lead to data breaches and malware attacks. Protecting your system from email threats like phishing and ransomware is critical for reducing your business's cyber and financial risk.

Adopting powerful email security tools can help you protect your company from malicious attacks. Here's how.

Although novel social engineering attacks have increased by 135% since OpenAI's ChatGPT hit the mainstream in late 2022, the same technology can help companies recognize and eliminate these threats 13 days faster than traditional security tools do.

Thanks to AI, these attacks are more sophisticated than their predecessors, which often had clear tells like poor spelling and threatening language.

For example, ML allows the solution to learn autonomously from historical data and patterns it identifies in real time, which can help you:

• Reduce false positives in threat reporting.
• Respond faster with real-time threat detection.
• Block sophisticated attacks created with generative AI.
• Improving threat detection accuracy.

And because these solutions continue learning autonomously, you can easily stay up to date with protections against new and evolving threats in the cybersecurity landscape.

What to look for in AI-powered email security tools

If you're considering adopting an AI-based email security solution, you'll want to choose one that takes a business-centric approach to cybersecurity instead of an attack-focused one.

Rather than relying on a database of known threats, which can let novel threats fall through the cracks, the AI teaches itself to recognize abnormalities by building profiles based on each user's typical email behaviors:

• Sentiment and tone
• Content and link sharing patterns
• Relationships between different team members

When the AI identifies communications that deviate from these expected behaviors, it knows to treat the conversation as a potential threat.

For example, if one employee suddenly pressures a teammate they work closely with to share personal information over email, the AI will identify this communication as abnormal and respond according to the level of risk.

According to research from IBM, phishing and stolen credentials are the two most prevalent attack vectors in data breaches. Some of the most common types of phishing attacks conducted via email include:

• Phishing: An attacker poses as a trusted source, such as a coworker or manager, to trick users into divulging personal or business information. For example, a hacker might impersonate a business partner to gain access to your company's financial data.
• Spear phishing: These phishing attacks target specific victims who have access to critical systems and data in your organization. For instance, a cyber criminal might target your company's CFO to gain access to high-level financial information that regular employees would not have.
• Malware: The attacker includes a link or attachment in their email that deploys malware when opened. Ransomware is a specific type of malware attack where the attacker encrypts the victim's devices or network, essentially locking them out until they pay the ransom.

Effective anti-phishing software can help you and your employees detect, respond to, and prevent serious incidents quickly and efficiently.

Tips for implementing anti-phishing solutions

While an advanced software system can help your organization significantly reduce your risk of falling victim to social engineering attacks, a smooth implementation is what makes that solution effective.

Follow these best practices to ensure success at every level of your organization:

• Train your staff: Security awareness training is a crucial element of any anti-phishing solution because it empowers your team to respond to threats they encounter. Your staff can also use what they learn to train an AI-powered system to recognize the characteristics of new threats.
• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA): Integrating an MFA solution into your anti-phishing tool can help you further enhance your email security because it requires additional authentication beyond a simple username and password combination that can be guessed.
• Develop a response plan: Regardless of the specific solution you choose, it's best to be prepared in case an employee manually submits personal information or clicks on a suspicious link. An incident response plan can help you minimize damage by defining a smooth course of action in the event that a threat does get through.

Although the global volume of spam emails sent has decreased significantly since 2011, it still makes up a large percentage of communication today.

Spam filtering is an email security tool that removes non-productive and malicious emails from your inbox.

The biggest benefits of adopting a spam filtering solution include:

• Improved productivity: Email filters reduce inbox clutter, which helps employees focus more completely on their work so they can get more done and increase your return on investment.
• Reduced risk: Because a spam filtering tool will automatically remove unnecessary and potentially fraudulent messages from the user's inbox, the risk of employees opening and falling victim to phishing messages is much lower.
• Reputational protection: Spam filters can also help your company preserve its image by preventing your customers from receiving compromised emails.

What to look for in enterprise spam filtering solutions

Often, spam filtering is a feature in other software platforms, such as email providers and comprehensive cybersecurity solutions.

However, you can find various types of spam filtering solutions outside of your email provider if you need a different type of filter.

For example, cloud-based filters analyze incoming messages before they arrive in your inbox, whether you're on premises or working from home. This capability enables you to prevent employees from ever seeing spam or fraudulent messages in the first place, which significantly reduces your risk of email phishing attacks.

Encryption solutions use cryptographic algorithms to convert email content into unreadable ciphertext, which protects interceptors from reading the message. Only the recipient who has the encryption key can decode the email back into plaintext.

Because encryption keys are long and highly complex, it's virtually impossible to guess the sequence of characters in a brute force attack. If an attacker attempts to steal your data in transit, they won't be able to make use of it unless they have the key.

Encryption solutions are increasingly popular in email platforms, as they protect confidential information without interfering with the function of your existing system.

Integrating encryption with existing email systems

You'll want to consider the following when choosing an email encryption system to ensure a streamlined implementation:

• Compatibility: Make sure the solution you choose is compatible with your existing email system. While you can configure the new tool as needed to fit your specific needs, it must be able to integrate with your enterprise email to work properly.
• APIs: Email encryption application programming interfaces (APIs) enable separate apps to communicate without requiring an on-premises connection, which provides additional flexibility in configurations.
• Scalability: Email encryption APIs are generally more scalable than other cybersecurity solutions, which can enable your email system to grow with your company's needs over time.

MFA bolsters the typical login process by requiring additional proof of identity, which can help you prevent malicious actors from entering your network even if they have stolen credentials.

It works by requiring users to present another authentication factor after entering their username and password. Some examples include:

• One-time links
• SMS messages
• PIN numbers
• Biometrics
• Security questions
• IP addresses
• Smart cards
• Security tokens
• Authenticator apps

Risk-based authentication further secures an MFA system by designating which identification factors users must present according to the degree of risk involved with the login. The level of risk typically varies between different users and the permissions they have in your system.

For example, while a medium-risk login might require users to respond to a push notification and answer a security question, a low-risk login could only require a password and PIN.

Best practices for implementing MFA

Following these best practices can help you smoothly implement an MFA architecture into your business:

• Educate users: Some employees will see MFA as a frustrating, time-consuming login method, which can cause them to become disengaged. Make sure your employees know why using multiple factors is so important to ensure they stay engaged and follow your authentication policies.
• Configure your policy: Setting custom MFA policies ensures the right users are enrolled into your program while terminated and other former employees are blocked from the system. You can also ensure your software self-enforces these policies to prevent human error during updates.
• Understand compliance requirements: MFA is a requirement in several cybersecurity standards, including PCI DSS and National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Report (NIST SP) 800-171, so successfully implementing it into your system and maintaining it is necessary to avoid heavy fines.

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A lack of visibility among disparate cloud platforms can cause threats to go unnoticed, especially in complex multi-cloud environments. That's why implementing cloud and API-based solutions can be an incredibly effective decision.

These types of solutions provide flexibility and customization you can't get with legacy and on-premises solutions, which helps you tailor your cybersecurity tools to your business's unique requirements. Additionally, because these systems are in the cloud, you can use them to enhance email security regardless of where you are and what device you are using to access your email.

The benefits of cloud and API-based email security

Unlike legacy solutions that require local connections, cloud- and API-based cybersecurity solutions exist on the internet, making them more accessible to general users than other email security tools.

The other significant benefits of using cloud and API technology to implement your email security solution include:

• Seamless integration: APIs and cloud computing use the internet to connect solutions, which simplifies implementation and integration and enables each different platform to frictionlessly transfer data.
• Customization: You can easily tailor your cybersecurity solution to your company's unique needs using APIs because they don't require additional software or complex setup.
• Scalability: While other communication technologies are becoming more popular, email is still king in the world of business. The cloud is incredibly flexible, so you can easily expand your security resources as needed to meet your company's growing needs.

Of course, these technologies are typically part of a full solution that also includes some or all of the other tools on this list.

Combining email security approaches to create a comprehensive solution can help you close security gaps and further reduce your risk.

For example, you could combine AI-powered threat management technology with two-factor authentication (2FA). This solution is similar to MFA, though it uses fewer identification factors to authenticate users, which is why implementing it along with an AI solution enhances its effectiveness.

Download: Darktrace / EMAIL Solution Brief

Discover the most advanced cloud-native AI email security solution to protect your domain and brand while preventing phishing, novel social engineering, business email compromise, account takeover, and data loss.

• Gain up to 13 days of earlier threat detection and maximize ROI on your current email security
• Experience 20-25% more threat blocking power with Darktrace / EMAIL
• Stop the 58% of threats bypassing traditional email security

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