The adoption of cloud email is increasing every year, with Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365 dominating. And now, a new report by Gartner noted that many clients have expressed dissatisfaction with default email security solutions, specifically citing Office 365.

Organizations should strongly consider integrating third-party solutions to strengthen their email security.

according to the report

A look at the top two

It’s true that Office 365 and Google Workspace offer a wide set of email security capabilities. However, due to the rise in BEC, ATO and other attacks, “some malicious emails get missed by Microsoft Defender for Office 365, and in fact by any other email gateway solutions,” according to the Gartner report.

The figure below illustrates the capabilities provided by email security vendors in general.

Default Email Security

Questions to ask yourself when evaluating your security needs

  1. Is your current email security solution blocking emails that should not be blocked?
  2. Is the email security solution not stopping malicious emails from entering your mailboxes which can be critical for your organization?
  3. What impact could result from certain types of emails getting through to end-users? (including missed spam, malicious attachments, inappropriate content, malicious URL’s, advanced phishing attacks etc.)?
  4. Does your current solution detect BEC?
  5. Have you measured how many malicious emails your system detects?
  6. Is your solution able to detect and block malicious emails even using the advanced phishing capabilities in Microsoft’s ATP optional add-on?
  7. Are you able to view a single consolidated list of all threat types, and then to sub-filter using layers?
  8. Can you create different policies to deal with different types of spam and bulk messages, such as spam, malware, phishing, and bulk matches.
  9. Can your anti-spam policy differentiate based on recipient and based on type of message?

API based Email security Solutions

Aside from traditional gateway solutions, security and risk management leaders should evaluate API-based solutions to act as an additional layer of protection. 

The report listed the options in the graphic below.

seg iess cess secure email providers

What to know about integrated cloud email security solutions

Gartner suggests adding an ICES – Integrated Cloud Email Security solution, such as Perception Point. These services include antivirus and spam detection capabilities to identify threats before they arrive in a user’s inbox. They identify phishing attacks and provide protection for internal emails and mail security orchestration, automation and response (M SOAR) functionality.

They also often include other capabilities such as:

  • Machine-learning-based detection trained on existing emails
  • Image analysis
  • Account takeover detection
  • Image recognition of URLs

Learn more about Perception Point Email security from our experts.

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Which questions to ask yourself when evaluating your security needs?

1. Is your current email security solution blocking emails that should not be blocked?
2. Is the email security solution not stopping malicious emails from entering your mailboxes which can be critical for your organization?
3. What impact could result from certain types of emails getting through to end-users? (including missed spam, malicious attachments, inappropriate content, malicious URL’s, advanced phishing attacks etc.)?
4. Does your current solution detect BEC?
5. Have you measured how many malicious emails your system detects?
6. Is your solution able to detect and block malicious emails even using the advanced phishing capabilities in Microsoft’s ATP optional add-on?
7. Are you able to view a single consolidated list of all threat types, and then to sub-filter using layers?
8. Can you create different policies to deal with different types of spam and bulk messages, such as spam, malware, phishing, and bulk matches.
9. Can your anti-spam policy differentiate based on recipient and based on type of message?

What should you know about integrated cloud email security solutions?

These services include antivirus and spam detection capabilities to identify threats before they arrive in a user’s inbox. They identify phishing attacks and provide protection for internal emails and mail security orchestration, automation and response (M SOAR) functionality.
They also often include other capabilities such as:
– Machine-learning-based detection trained on existing emails
– Image analysis
– Account takeover detection
– Image recognition of URLs