5 Important Benefits of Proofpoint Email Protection

90% of all targeted cyberattacks begin with an email. Phishing has been around nearly as long as email itself and remains so dangerous because it continues to be effective. An email message is able to get in front of a user in a way that a hacker can't in any other way. A cleverly disguised phishing email can easily fool a user into taking an action that will infect a network with malware or result in credential theft. Protecting users from malicious email threats is a big part of any good network security strategy. And for today’s increasingly more sophisticated threats, it takes a sophisticated solution. One that Texas I.T. Pros recommends is Proofpoint Email Protection. This tool offers multi-layered safeguards for all types of email threats.

How Dangerous is Phishing to My Small Business? Before we get into details on Proofpoint, let’s discuss why small businesses need to protect against phishing.

Scammers Use Increasingly Sneaky Tactics As well trained as users may be at spotting phishing, it’s hard even for the most tech savvy to keep up with increasingly sneaky tactics designed to fool them. Just a couple that have been seen recently are:

1. Use of links from popular programs like OneDrive and SharePoint that people tend to trust.

2. Use of “Zombie Phish,” which is gaining access to a user email account and replying to an old email conversation with a phishing link.

Smaller Companies See a Higher Rate of Attack In a study by Symantec related to phishing, email malware, spam, and other threats, it was found that smaller organizations are hit the most.

1. Approximately 1 in 323 emails is malicious for companies with 1-250 Employees

2. Approximately 1 in 823 emails is malicious for companies with 1001-1500 employees

Phishing Can Be Costly for Small Businesses The average cost for a small business to restore normal operations after a successful cyberattack is $955,429. And most small businesses (91%) do not have any cyber liability insurance. Costs due to phishing can be from downtime, lost productivity, lost business, and loss of business reputation and current customers if the phishing attack results in a data breach.

How Proofpoint Combats Email-Related Attacks Proofpoint is an application that offers several layers of protection for your user email accounts. This includes against malware and non-malware threats, including email fraud. The platform is designed to control and monitor all inbound and outbound email to detect and block threats of all kinds.

Business Email Compromise (BEC) Proofpoint’s monitoring and advanced analytics are designed to detect email account compromise. If there is unusual email activity on a user account, such as hundreds of emails being sent out in just a few minutes – the system will flag this and take actions to block any unauthorized access. In 2019, 86% of businesses experienced BEC attacks.

Credential Phishing & Malicious URLs Credential phishing is generally done by including a link in a phishing email that goes to a spoofed sign-in form. For example, a user might get a message that claims to be from a colleague and includes a OneDrive file sharing link. When the user clicks the link, they’re taken to a fake Microsoft 365 sign-in form that is designed to steal their login credentials. Proofpoint’s defense systems analyze emails for dangerous credential phishing and other URL-based threats and can automatically quarantine these malicious emails in minutes.

Zero-Day Threats Zero-day malware is common and now makes up a vast percentage of overall phishing threats. This is malware that is so new that it hasn’t yet been detected and put into known threat databases. In order to catch and block Zero-day threats, Proofpoint uses behavior-based recognition, where the program is looking for behaviors common to malicious threats and uncommon to normal user activity.

Polymorphic Malware Malware that can change its form to avoid detection by standard anti-malware programs is called polymorphic. This is a new and growing category of malware used in phishing attacks and an example of how attackers continue to evolve their threats. Proofpoint is designed to be able to detect and stop polymorphic malware to ensure your devices are safe, even from this type of advanced attack.

Malicious File Attachments Users often get fooled by cleverly disguised phishing file attachments that might look like an innocent Word or Excel file. But they contain a macro designed to infect a device with malware. This is yet another layer of security that Proofpoint offers to protect user email. It can detect and quarantine messages that contain malicious file attachments.

Get Solid Email Protection & Reduce Your Risk of a Cyberattack Texas I.T. Pros can work with your Denton or Wise County business to set up Proofpoint email protection to ensure your company is protected from the most malicious and prevalent threats. Contact us today to learn more! Call 940-239-6500 or reach out online.