“Phishing” is a major digital threat to companies worldwide. It manipulates the email users of a particular organization to give hackers access to sensitive information or have users unknowingly install malware like ransomware. Phishing has been responsible for multiple major corporate IT breaches. In one case, hackers used it to gain access to information concerning 110 million users.
Instead of attacking the company’s formidable corporate defenses head-on, they targeted a third-party service supplier that had access to the company’s IT systems. Once they gained access to the supplier’s servers, getting into the corporation’s servers was relatively simple. Consequently, phishing has become a top-of-mind threat to corporate leaders everywhere.
Email security gateway solutions
“The first thing a company concerned about these issues should do is implement an email security gateway solution,” says David Priestly, virtual chief information officer (vCIO) and IT operations manager for Ohio Business Machines (OBM). Priestly notes that in choosing an email security gateway solution, organizations need to find solutions that work for them. One way to do that quickly involves the use of phishing campaigns.
“We do phishing campaigns,” Priestly explains, “where we send over fake emails to the company. If employees click on them, we can tell the user that he or she clicked on a bad email, here’s why it was bad, what it could have done, and what you need to do to identify these things.” Phishing campaigns provide feedback to company leaders and IT stakeholders, including reports on who’s been accessing what and what the organization can do to protect itself and remain secure. “Maybe they need more training, maybe there are two or three people in the organization who are the ones behind 90% of the issues. This is how you identify those issues.”
Barracuda email security gateway
Email security gateway solutions prevent phishing and help mitigate email-borne viruses and adware. Barracuda, the email security gateway solution OBM primarily recommends, also offers archiving, advanced threat protection, email encryption, data loss prevention, and cloud-based protection against spam, malware, and other threats. It uses artificial intelligence to detect and stop email attacks and automatically quarantine suspect messages. The solution features forensics and incident response capabilities and can block future emails coming from specific regions.
OBM adjusts the Barracuda email security gateway specifically to a company’s requirements. “There’s a baseline configuration, but we tailor it to what a customer really needs,” says Priestly. “You can open it up or become very strict with it, depending on the organization’s requirements and how much risk they want to assume as a company.”
Are you interested in discussing phishing and other cybersecurity issues? Contact our Toledo, Cleveland or Akron offices.