Secure Email

It may surprise most people to hear that Email was first used as early as 1965, but not in a way that we would recognise today.

It was first used at MIT and called MAILBOX, it was basically a way of leaving a “message”  on the server for another user in the users directory where they would find it when they logged in.

In those days messages could only be sent to other users who had access to the same server, the terminals were dumb devices that shared the resources of the central server.

In 1971 Ray Tomlinson was credited with creating the modern Email system by making use of the @ symbol to denote the sending of messages from one computer to another. John Vittal later developed software to organise Emails. The internet was developed and the adoption of Email continued to grow.

The Email system was originally conceived for internal communication and security was not initially considered to be a priority in the development of the system. The need for security only came about much later after the popularity of Email exploded, by which time it was too late to re-design the basic system operations.

The first important email standard was called smtp, simple message transfer protocol, it was very simple and made no attempt to verify the sender’s identity. Forgery was and still is very easy to do. SMTP is still used for outgoing Emails today and is not very secure, this is why 91% of all cyber attacks start with email.

Securing emails requires additional services.

Outlook 365, A Part Of Microsoft Office 365, Takes The Popular Email Software Into The Cloud.

Office 365 offers numerous security upgrades to traditional email services, below are some of these services, some of which may require an additional subscription or package upgrade.

Encrypted Email + Data Loss Prevention

Companies who deal with sensitive information like credit card information, social security numbers and/or health records need to prevent this information from leaking outside their organization. This is where encrypted email and data loss prevention come in.

Encrypted email basically ensures no one other than the intended recipient can open and read emails you send. This is usually required for companies to meet regulatory needs like HIPAA.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) ensures sensitive information doesn’t get sent outside of your organization to begin with (applies to more than just email – also includes SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business and Office programs like Excel and Word). DLP policies monitor your environment for sensitive data and prevents users from sending that information outside your organization.

There are already templates set up to fit most major regulatory and compliance needs (like HIPAA). You can also create and customize the DLP policies to fit your specific needs. You can customize the rules to fit everything from the location of the data, type of information (credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc) conditions (type of information and in what context it’s being used) and the action taken (block the content completely or send a notification).

Advanced Threat Protection

One of the most popular forms of cybercrime right now is ransomware, which is spread almost entirely through malicious links and attachments in emails. These are getting more and more sophisticated and realistic looking, making them harder to spot – especially for employees who aren’t trained in what to look for.

Advanced Threat Protection helps by stopping these malicious links and attachments before they get to your inbox. It opens the attachments and links in a virtual environment (complete separate from your environment) and checks for malicious activity before the email gets to your inbox.

Knowing that your account has been compromised can be almost impossible until it’s too late. You usually don’t find out until the hacker has already gotten into your system and taken some sort of action. Azure Identity Protection can catch this – and help stop the hacker from actually getting in.

Azure Identity Protection uses machine learning to understand how you work and flags unusual activity. For example, it will learn where and when you typically log in, so if you log in from an unusual place and time, it can flag that. It’ll also detect multiple log ins in a short amount of time from multiple locations (like your office and a hacker in another country).

If suspicious activity is detected, there are steps you can take to keep the hacker out. You can force the user to perform multi-factor authentication to verify their identity or stop the sign in completely.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds a layer of protection to the log in process. Typically, you just use one way to verify you are who you say you are – a password – to log in to most services, including Office 365.

MFA uses more than one way. It combines two or more of something you know (a password), something you are (biometrics like a fingerprint or retinal scan), and something you have (like a passcode on a dongle or on your phone). If a cyber-criminal is able to get your password, they still won’t be able to access your files without the other verification method(s).

There are two options for MFA for Office 365 users: Office 365 comes with a basic, built-in option, which will work well for many companies. It gives you the ability to activate at the user level and several different options for the second verification method.

Companies who want more control, or need to meet specific compliance requirements may be better off with the other option: Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (this is an add-on, so there will be an additional cost).

Although Office 365 offers some very powerful security tools, we strongly recommend the addition of Vade Secure to further complement Office 365 making it even more secure.

Vade Secure.

AI-Based Email Security.

By making use of Vade Secure we are able to leverage the experience of a global leader in predictive email defense. Vade Secure protects over 600 million mailboxes in 76 countries.

By using Vade we help SMBs protect their Office 365 users from advanced email threats, including phishing, spear phishing, and malware.

Inbox Zero

With Vade Secure, your email system becomes efficient and enjoyable to use. Your inbox becomes transparent and legible, thanks to upstream classification of your email as a function of type.

Management Of E-Subscriptions

One click secure unsubscribe ensures you only receive the emails you want and easily eliminates unsolicited communications such as spam. It also filters the communications you have unsubscribed from.

Clear Efficiency

Vade Secure classifies your emails with a detection rate greater than 99.999% and ensures that you receive priority emails with a 0.000062% false positive rate.

What is Phishing?

880 Million Phishing Emails Detected In 2018

Phishing emails are designed to look like they were sent from familiar brands such as banks or cloud services like Netflix, Dropbox or Microsoft Office 365. After clicking on a phishing link, victims are directed to replica web pages where they are instructed to change or update a password or update personally identifiable or financial information. The average user is totally unaware that they’ve been phished until the business recognizes the breach.

AI-Based Phishing Protection

Traditional email filters are designed to identify known threats—which has prompted phishers to use a variety of obfuscation techniques to successfully bypass these products. Vade Secure’s Anti-Phishing Solution uses artificial intelligence, including machine learning, to perform real-time behavioral analysis of the origin, content, and context of the email.

The Most Difficult To Detect: Spear Phishing Or Targeted Attacks

The goal of spear phishing is to trap a person by usurping the identity of a person in his network (personal or professional). The attack takes place solely by exchanging emails in order to create confidence, then asking the victim to perform an action (open an attached document, make a bank payment, etc.). The most sophisticated spear phishing does not contain links to an external site.

Incoming Filter:

In addition to classic filtering techniques, Vade Secure’s heuristic filter and artificial intelligence protects you against unknown attacks, and recognizes a targeted attack, a scam against the president, or phishing.

Identity Match:

Developed and patented by Vade Secure, “IdentityMatch” verifies the identity of the sender. IdentityMatch is designed to detect all kinds of identity fraud. Depending upon the filter’s degree of certainty, the solution adapts, and notifies the receiver up to the point that the email is blocked.

Contents Analysis:

Vade Secure’s anti-spearphishing solution uses heuristic algorithms specially developed to fight against this threat. The filter analyzes email contents in order to determine if personal data are requested, thus protecting the user.

More Than 220 Million Malware And Ransomware Blocked Each Year:

Professional emails are a focus of malware attacks because they can contact companies’ IT systems, which have become essential to all organizations. Large companies or small- to medium-sized companies, all email users are targeted. Slowing down or blocking IT systems, industrial espionage, theft of data and requests to pay ransom are common today. Vade Secure blocks all forms of malware from the first attack using systematic analysis of the origin, the contents and the context of each email. Low-volume sophisticated attacks or evolving attacks, ransomware, nothing gets through thanks to our predictive defense solutions.

55 To 95% Of Total Email Traffic Is Considered Non-Priority

Graymail and spam are a main source of lost productive time in a company. An average user receives 39 emails by day, of which at least 25 are useless or non-priority. Vade Secure helps your users improve the management

of their emails and concentrate on what’s important. Thanks to automatic management and classification of the email system, users increase their productivity and gain optimal and secure use of their email.

Improve Productivity

Gain transparency and get optimal use out of your email system. Vade Secure allows you to concentrate on what’s important and directly access your priority messages without being distracted by other messages.

Inbox Zero

With Vade Secure, your email system becomes efficient and enjoyable to use. Your inbox becomes transparent and legible, thanks to upstream classification of your email as a function of type.

Management Of E-Subscriptions

One click secure unsubscribe ensures you only receive the emails you want and easily eliminates unsolicited communications such as spam. It also filters the communications you have unsubscribed from.

Clear Efficiency

Vade Secure classifies your emails with a detection rate greater than 99.999% and ensures that you receive priority emails with a 0.000062% false positive rate.

Expansion Of Cyber-Security Offering With Launch Of Secure7 Mail Protect

vCloud.ie is excited to announce further expansion of their secure7 cyber-security solution with the launch of secure7 Mail protect, powered by Vade Secure. Vade Secure is the global leader in predictive email defence protecting more than 500 Million mailboxes in 76 countries. This solution uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a massive data set to fight email threats – the largest threat to today’s IT Department.

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