The technology and policies designed to protect email content and communication from cyber threat attacks by leveraging solutions that can universally operate in cloud, on-premise, and hybrid email environments.
What is Cloud Security?
Over the past decade, cloud adoption has seen explosive growth at both consumer and enterprise level, and it is easy to see why. Cloud-based applications have significantly changed the way we work and share information more efficiently. Cloud-based computing has transformed IT infrastructures making them more flexible, scalable, and cost effective. According to Gartner, cloud-first strategies are a way for organizations to ‘transform, differentiate, and gain competitive advantage’ and many are progressing on their digital transformation journeys.
When moving to the cloud, organizations have several deployment options, including:
Public Cloud
Where all infrastructure is owned and managed by a cloud service provider, such as AWS or Microsoft Azure.
Private Cloud
Where a cloud computing network is used exclusively by one organization, either located at on-site data center, or hosted by a third-party.
Hybrid Cloud
Where data and applications move between both public and private clouds, allowing organizations to reap the benefits from both environments.
Whichever option an organization chooses, they all have implications for security and when migrating to the cloud, a key consideration is ensuring that data, systems, and applications are fully protected from cyber threats and unauthorized access. An organization needs to ensure it can apply its security policies to the cloud and that they are consistent with those applied to any of its on-premise infrastructures. To achieve this, organizations use cloud security solutions and services, which protect data in the cloud and keep the organization compliant with data privacy laws and industry regulations.
What Is a Cloud Email Security Solution?
Email security solutions function as a security barrier for email communications within an organization's network by inspecting incoming emails for advanced threats, such as malicious links, phishing attempts and malware attachments, and by monitoring outbound email traffic. With more pervasive cyberattacks at every turn and business intersection, it’s imperative to protect your organization’s infrastructure from being infiltrated. As revealed in the FBI’s Internet Crime Report from 2022, over $52 million in losses were attributed as a direct result of successful phishing and more than $2.7 billion in losses from BEC scams.
In the working environment that we conduct business in today, a solution that protects your on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid environment is a requisite step on the course of defending against the most sophisticated attacks. As substantiated in the headlines of last few years, threat actors and attackers don’t prioritize one type of business or industry over another – becoming a target of a cyberattack is a looming threat for enterprise-level organizations to small businesses and consumers alike.
How Does Cloud Email Security Work?
Email security solutions rely on layered defenses to protect organizations. And while many solutions contain built-in security features and controls like spam filters or the ability to set alerts that warn of unknown senders, many services fall short when it comes to additional protections that truly defend against evolving cyber threats and email vector attacks.
A single, scalable, integrated cloud email security (ICES) solution can protect email from many external threats and even internal attacks. Thus, it is essential to have a solution that goes above and beyond the default which stands OUT from the crowd and stands UP against commonplace scams and advanced email attacks and tactics – like impersonation and social engineering. Fortra has the only solution that combines advanced data science, global inbox threat intelligence, and automated remediation in a single cloud-native platform.
Overcome Security Uncertainty from Cloud Phishing & More
Business Email Compromise
Cloud email security solutions eliminate fake email messages from imposters posing as trusted colleagues, associates, and friends to defraud your business by leveraging ML technologies that check email header data, etc..
Spear Phishing
Cloud email security solutions prevent executive impersonation and other highly targeted identity deception schemes designed to steal funds and obtain confidential information through threat indicators curated via threat intelligence feeds.
Account Takeover
Cloud email security solutions stop targeted email attacks originating from a compromised email account and delivered via ransomware or other vector, exploiting the previously established trust between the compromised sender and their contacts.
Social Engineering
Outsmart organized crime rings that use social engineering to manipulate employees into divulging information and performing other harmful actions, such as this recently discovered O365 lure that was impersonating Verizon and was able to bypass legacy security defenses.
Cloud Email Security Solutions from Fortra
Through AI-based predictive technology and data science, Fortra offers robust, best-in-class email security solutions that help secure email through:
- Combined AI, threat intelligence, and automated remediations
- Malicious URL & attachment scanning
- Spoofed domain detection
Fortra’s Cloud Email Protection
An integrated cloud email security platform that detects and remediates advanced email threats including BEC, spear phishing, and targeted social engineering.
Agari DMARC Protection
Safeguards employees and business partners from malicious email spoofs, while also preventing brand abuse.
Threat Intelligence Services
Disrupts threat actors, prevents fraud, and enriches security controls by delivering critical insight before attacks strike.
Suspicious Email Analysis
Complementary to Fortra's Cloud Email Protection, SEA protects against threats that reach user inboxes by detecting, analyzing, and mitigating emails designed to scam employees.
nICESt Features Included with Cloud Email Security Solutions
Integrated cloud email security solutions today offer robust tools because there are too many scams and threat actors who are waiting in the wings to compromise your account. Fortra restores trust to your inbox by automating processes through groundbreaking features and industry-busting benefits, including:
Seeking a customized cloud-based email security solution for your current email platform?
See how Fortra's Cloud Email Security solution can fortify Microsoft 365.
FAQs
Cloud-based email removes the burden of stored information on servers maintained by the organization. An organization replaces on-premise email servers with cloud-based servers from a third party. With cloud email, gone are the days when a device failure means a failure to access email. Users can simply use any device to access their email.
After migration to cloud email, users may find that their legacy email security solutions are no longer optimized for cloud environments. This forces organizations to compromise their security and even their cloud architecture – some of which were the very reasons they switched to cloud email in the first place. Cloud email security solutions are integrated and optimized for cloud-based email security, minus the compromise.
An integrated cloud-based email security solution (ICES) is one of the newest categories of email security technologies that includes a multi-tiered architecture for cloud email security. ICES technology platforms supplement traditional on-premise security appliances like Secure Email Gateways (SEGs), or can be added as a fortified layer of defense to augment cloud-based email, such as Microsoft 365.
While SEG appliances are good at protecting against email attacks like spam and ransomware, they are not adept at detecting more sophisticated scams and schemes, such as BEC, impersonation, and social engineering.
This is because SEGs are on-premise, which can result in advanced email attacks – like cloud phishing – to slip past. SEGs also do not leverage data science technologies, such as customized ML models that are developed to detect nuances and incongruencies within email header data, body content, etc.