Email security is the practice of preventing email-based cyber attacks and unwanted communications. It spans protecting inboxes from takeover, protecting domains from spoofing, stopping phishing attacks, preventing fraud, blocking malware delivery, filtering spam, and using encryption to protect the contents of emails from unauthorised persons.

Some of the common types of email attacks include:

• Fraud: Email-based fraud attacks can take a variety of forms, from the classic advance-fee scams directed at everyday people to business email compromise (BEC) messages that aim to trick large enterprise accounting departments into transferring money to illegitimate accounts. Often the attacker will use domain spoofing to make the request for funds look like it comes from a legitimate source.
• Phishing: A phishing attack tries to get the victim to give the attacker sensitive information. Email phishing attacks may direct users to a fake webpage that collects credentials, or simply pressure the user to send the information to an email address secretly controlled by the attacker. Domain spoofing is also common in attacks like these.
• Malware: Types of malware delivered over email include spyware, scareware, adware, and ransomware, among others. Attackers can deliver malware via email in several different ways. One of the most common is including an email attachment that contains malicious code.
• Account takeover: Attackers take over email inboxes from legitimate users for a variety of purposes, such as monitoring their messages, stealing information, or using legitimate email addresses to forward malware attacks and spam to their contacts.
• Email interception: Attackers can intercept emails in order to steal the information they contain, or to carry out on-path attacks in which they impersonate both sides of a conversation to each other. The most common method for doing this is monitoring network data packets on wireless local area networks (LANs), as intercepting an email as it transits the Internet is extremely difficult.

Secure Email Gateway

A secure email gateway (SEG) is an email security product that uses signature analysis and machine learning to identify and block malicious emails before they reach recipients’ inboxes. They are important because email attacks, such as phishing, are some of the most common cyber threats organisations face.

SEGs work similarly to secure web gateways (SWGs) but focus on identifying threats in email traffic rather than a user’s web browsing activity.

Secure Exchange Gateway

Secure Exchange Gateway (SXG) helps to safeguard against critical information being distributed through internal email and subsequently leaving an organisation.  Detecting malware, suspicious scripts, and identifying sensitive data in messages and attachments based on an easily defined policy-based rules enables organisations to adhere to security and compliance requirements.

Benefits of Secure Exchange Gateway

• Inspect content to new depths
• Gain comprehension control over malware
• Simplify administration with policy-based rules
• Contain false positives with Monitor Mode
• Reduce exchange server load for improved delivery times

ARgon for email       

ARgon for Email is the solution that integrates advanced data loss prevention (DLP) functionality to your existing security infrastructure rapidly and effectively. At its core, ARgon provides efficient protection against a range of information threats from both inbound and outbound email.

The automatic sanitisation and redaction features in ARgon for Email remove only the elements that can cause potential data breaches, allowing safe communications to continue unimpeded. This significantly reduces the number of false positives typically associated with stop and block DLP solutions, and lessens the burden on IT.

ARgon for Email provides organisations with visibility and peace of mind that critical information being shared through email is secure and protected, keeping it compliant with industry regulations.