BUSINESS SURVEILLANCE

Sujatha Narasimhan , Senior Sales Engineer at Mimecast , tells us about the importance of a workplace security strategy . She breaks down the security limitations of Microsoft 365 , describes how to build email security and explains how to defend a business ’ critical data and information from hackers and other cybersecurity threats .

Over 90 % of all cyberattacks start with email – why is email the number one attack vector ?

Email stands out as a universally valuable tool for all businesses irrespective of the industry . Clearly , there is a huge volume of data contained within email transactions . And as data proliferates , so does the probability of risk , especially with widespread tool adoption . This aligns with our annual State of Email Security Report which reveals that corporate reliance on emails

is approximately 89 %. This reliance persists despite the integration of collaborative tools like Teams and Slack into communication arsenals . Evidently , organisations still heavily depend on email as their primary method of communication , making it the number one attack vector .

How can companies not only protect against attacks but limit the impact of an attack should the worst happen , and how can technology aid this ?

We can break this down into four measures of protection . Firstly , any organisation aiming to defend against attacks needs comprehensive visibility and control . This involves securing all entry and exit points within the infrastructure . For example , with emails , most organisations focus on controlling incoming and outgoing emails but overlook internal communications . So , conversations between colleagues

Sujatha Narasimhan , Senior Sales Engineer at Mimecast

become a blind spot and that ’ s where organisations need visibility .

After visibility , the second need is security tools and mechanisms that can respond to attacks . Organisations need to start asking themselves , ‘ How do we limit an attack if it were to surface from within our organisation ?’. What if a scenario arises where an account gets compromised within the organisation and the internal user starts spamming customers ? That ’ s why measures to counter internal threats with effective security tools are essential .

Thirdly , a prevalent industry issue is an overwhelming volume of incidents security teams battle with . Outsourcing or managed responses can improve the mean time to detect and respond to incidents and allow organisations to focus on the core operations of running the business .

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