Email Security information and its components – BEST PRACTICES FOR SECURITY …
What Is Email Security?
We need to protect our e-mail accounts from various types of cyber attacks. Unauthorized access should not be allowed at any cost. Most organizations use policies and tools that provide some kind of protection against malicious threats.
It saves the organization from malware called spam, phishing attacks, unauthorized access, loss of data, security compromise, etc.
Most emails are targeted by cybercriminals for getting sensitive information. By intercepting, attackers can easily read emails and get a hold of sensitive and confidential information.
Types of e-mail attacks
Cyber attackers use various tips and tricks to hack e-mail. They can cause considerable damage to the reputation or data of an organization. So before placing any e-mail security system, one must be aware of different types of e-mail attacks. Let us discuss some basic types of e-mail attacks.
Phishing
The phishing attack starts by sending a text or a direct message or an e-mail. The text seems to be coming from a trusted source, though it is not. Then they use the relationship to steal sensitive data or login information. Phishing is done in various forms like regular phishing, whaling, spearfishing, etc. Some types of phishing like spearfishing target only an individual, l while some other types of phishing like Whaler phishing target the whole organization.
Spam
Spam is the term used for irrelevant messages that we receive over the Internet. A large number of people get these types of messages in the form of advertising, promotion, etc.
Spoofing
In spoofing, an Email is sent with another name other than the correct recipient’s name. The receiver is fooled in this way. This makes spoofing BEC (business e-mail compromise) a tool. The impersonation of a person plays the card for the victim here.
BEC – This is a carefully planned attack in which the attacker impersonates a company, suppliers, executive, etc., and then adds legitimacy to the request in certain ways. The major aim behind this is to trick someone who sends money over the wire.
BEST PRACTICES FOR E-MAIL SECURITY
Have you heard of the term ransomware? It is a type of advanced threat and it affects multiple endpoints. It steals sensitive data very quickly. To stop such threats one needs to use some best e-mail protection practices that can work in real time.
Implementing a secure e-mail gateway is important for all organizations. As attackers are getting increasingly sophisticated, it is important that an organization adopt standard security measures. Here I’m discussing some of the best practices that can be used by all.
What are the things in Email Security
1. Antivirus protection – Antivirus protection seems to be the best option as it screens all the coming emails as well as the attachment. It searches for the virus and blocks it from entering the system. It provides a warning to the user whenever suspicious activities or viruses are observed.
2. Multi-factor authentication – Multi-factor authentication uses more than one authentication method to prove one’s identity before giving a grant of access to the system. This is one of the most popular and successful data loss protection and anti-hacking tool.
3. E-mail encryption – This is a common type of anti-e-mail hacking system. E-mail encryption disguises corporate e-mail by graveling the arrangement of letters and numbers. It makes it difficult for the reader to understand the communication correctly. E-mail encryption solution is mandatory for organizations following the regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, PCC- DSS.
4. Spam filter – This type of filter detects spam and stops it from getting into your inbox. It sends the file as junk mail.
5. Secure e-mail gateway – It uses the IT administrator-provided settings to filter out potentially dangerous emails. It provides multi-layered protection from Malacious BEC emails.
6. Employee education – This is one of the best ways to avoid the loss of data or the compromise of sensitive information. An employee must be educated about the types of attacks and how to avoid them, and also to recognize social engineering.
7. Use the Marc domain protection system- This system prevents attackers from using the corporate domain in any type of phishing campaign.
More questions about Email Security
It is a technology deployed to screen incoming emails for any kind of malicious threats.
Microsoft 365 has become a standard productivity platform around the world. It is good to know that it provides cloud e-mail protection to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection stop
The four main components are –
(a) Body of the email
(b) Attachment of the email
(c ) Sender’s email address
(d) URLs within the email