Blog Layout

Basic of Email Security

Author name

Introduction

Email is the backbone of any business. In order to keep your data safe and secure, it's important that you take measures to ensure that your emails are protected. You should employ a third party email security solution in addition to the basic protections offered by Office 365. This will give you comprehensive protection against spam, phishing attempts, malware infections and other threats.


Email security is the most critical aspect of cybersecurity

Email security is the most critical aspect of cybersecurity. According to a report by Cofense, email is the most common way to spread malware, steal credentials and launch phishing attacks. It's also the most common way for spam emails to reach their target audience.

Email threats can be broken down into two categories: malicious attachments (such as viruses or ransomware) and malicious links within emails that lead users away from your site into a dangerous location on the web.


Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365) provides basic email security

Office 365 provides basic email security. Basic features include:

  • Anti-spam. Office 365 filters out unwanted mail for you, helping keep your inbox clean and relevant.
  • Anti-phishing. Office 365 blocks fraudulent emails designed to steal your identity or money, such as fake invoices or receipts that ask you to provide sensitive information like login credentials or credit card numbers via an attachment or link contained in the message itself (aka "spear phishing").
  • Anti-malware protection scans all incoming messages for malware attachments before they reach your computer or mobile device so you don't inadvertently download malicious software onto either one -- which could put sensitive financial data at risk if someone were able to access it through infected files attached to emails sent from within your organization's network


It is necessary to use a third party email security solution

It's important to understand that while Microsoft 365 is a very powerful platform, it is not a complete solution for protecting your email. The reason for this is because it doesn't offer any protection against spam, phishing or malware.

In order to protect yourself from cyber attacks and other types of electronic threats, it's necessary to use a third party email security solution.

The good news is that there are a number of different third party email security solutions available for use with Microsoft Office 365. These tools provide additional protection against phishing scams and malware as well as keeping your data safe from hackers.


Third party solutions offer more comprehensive protection against spam, phishing and malware than do Microsoft's solutions

Microsoft's  365 has basic security features, but third party solutions offer more comprehensive protection against spam, phishing and malware. When you use a third party solution to protect your cloud services like Office 365, you can also protect other applications that are running on the same server as Microsoft Exchange (for example: SharePoint). This is not possible with native solutions such as Exchange Online Protection or Azure Rights Management Services.

Third party solutions are also more flexible than native ones because they allow you to choose which components will be included in your subscription package--you don't have to pay extra fees just because you want some additional features!

The bottom line is that third party security solutions offer more flexibility and control over your Office 365 environment than native ones. In addition, they help you to protect your data against a wider range of threats such as spam, phishing attacks and malware infection.


Conclusion

Email security is crucial for protecting against cyber threats, and Office 365 offers basic security features for free. However, for more comprehensive protection against spam, phishing, and malware, it is recommended to use a third-party solution like Avanan or consult professional service like us.

MIP dynammic content marking
October 19, 2023
At Amazing Dino Consulting, we recognize the importance of data classification and protection. With the influx of data coming in and out of organizations daily, safeguarding your sensitive information is more crucial than ever. Leveraging Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) provides an efficient way to classify and protect sensitive data based on its content. In this blog post, we'll explore dynamic content marking, a feature that can automate and tailor protection measures for your documents. What is Dynamic Content Marking? Dynamic content marking in MIP allows organizations to automatically append specific labels, headers, footers, or watermarks to documents based on predefined variables. This provides a layer of information about the document, enhancing data governance and compliance. How Does It Work? When you configure a sensitivity label for content markings in MIP, you can use variables in the text string for your header, footer, or watermark. The supported variables include: ${Item.Label} : Label display name of the label applied. Example: General ${Item.Name} : File name or email subject of the content being labeled. Example: Sales.docx ${Item.Location} : Path and file name of the document or the email subject for an email being labeled. Example: \Sales\2023\Q3\Report.docx ${User.Name} : Display name of the user applying the label. Example: Richard Simone ${User.PrincipalName} : Azure AD user principal name (UPN) of the user applying the label. Example: t est@amazingdino.testing ${Event.DateTime} : Date and time when the content is labeled, either in the local time zone of the user in Microsoft 365 apps or UTC for Office Online and auto-labeling policies. Example: 8/10/2023 1:30 PM Note: The syntax for these variables is case-sensitive. Demonstration First, go to compliance.microsoft.com->Information Protection->Labels and click "create a label". Then, enter the name and associate information.
By looka_production_101445564 July 2, 2023
Azure AD Applicaiton Proxy
By looka_production_101445564 January 15, 2023
There are multiple considerations on selecting SASE solution. Here are soem of my personal view. Point of Presence SASE points of presence (POPs) are typically deployed in public clouds or data centres and are managed by vendors. However, some solution may allow you to add the gateway software and become customer’s POP to meet your need. Each vendor has its own performance limitations for their POPs, including throughput (some vendors only support sub-1Gbps), the number of concurrent sessions, and their auto-scale policy (which may need to be inquired about). Available bandwidth from the POP is key area you need to consider. Beware on the latency between your CPE or client and security POP. For example, your CPE in Vietnam may end up connect to SASE POP in SG which may add up to 40-60ms. Security feature I would say the following are MUST have features TLS/SSL Decryption for detecting callback traffic and the certificate must be installed automatically by the VPN client DNS security - detecting DNS tunnel traffic as some exfiltration traffic are tunneled inside DNS traffic AI-driven and up-to-date URL categorization and filtering capable of zero-day Malware detection For SaaS, it depends on whether you have any existing solution in place, those are the key one you need to look at. SaaS security - please note that not every vendor may support the SaaS that you are using DLP Logging, monitoring and Reporting The following are mandatory features I will look into myself SIEM integration end to end network performance analysis - from end user to the application Be able to search log in the management portal Be able to generate executive summary report with some level of customization Last but not least, you should do proof-of-concept testing to validate your use case when you select right SASE solution. I do see many successful implementation are required well-defined use case and proof-of-concept testing to pick the right solution. Contact us if you need help from selecting right SASE solution for you.
Share by: