How Email Security Is Evolving

The Importance of Email Security

Email remains the primary vehicle used by cybercriminals, with 90% of cyberattacks delivered via this attack vector. Email is also the most essential and widely used business communication tool.

Securing email communication has never been more critical for organizations, and it has never been more challenging to do so. Attack volumes have not only gone up, but the attacks delivered via email have also become more sophisticated.

The work-from-home shift experienced by most of the world has made employees and organizations more vulnerable to cyberattacks delivered by email than ever before. This makes business email an irresistible target for cybercriminals.

Email Security Is at a Crossroads

Protecting email, while reducing cost and complexity, is a business-critical objective for organizations of all sizes, working in virtually every industry, and in all areas of the world. Workers are more frequently than ever logging on remotely from home, from hotels, from coffee shops, and sometimes even using their own personal devices. Often distracted by their environment, even the most cautious user can inadvertently open a malicious email or click on a malicious link.

Some organizations are choosing to rely on platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace to provide the base of their email security strategy, while others are choosing to rely on more specialized products such as a secure email gateway created by cybersecurity vendors. And while most cybersecurity vendors force customers to choose only their specialized solution in order to reap its benefits, it is completely possible for these vendors to modify their existing specialized solutions to work with well-known software vendor platforms to augment and enhance those platforms’ security to the extreme benefit of their customers.

Meeting Today's Email Security Needs

Today's agile organizations desire — and should require — simplicity and effective results from their security tools. And with continual pressure for security leaders to justify their investments in new security technology, email security solutions should be diverse, cost effective, and deliver a quick return. This is all coming at a time when complexity for virtually every security team is increasing. System noise is increasing, the business and compliance needs of organizations are growing more diverse and complicated, and the risk cyberattacks pose is continually on the rise.

Gateway-less email security solutions stand poised to meet these customer needs. These solutions augment the security of software platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace by reinspecting emails that have already passed through the platform's email gateway and been scanned by its email security tool. These gateway-less email security solutions use routing rules to inspect emails after they have been scanned by the platform's detection engine but before they are delivered to users' inboxes. This helps stop the threats that may have been missed by Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or other software platform security tools.

Gateway-less email security solutions deliver world-class protection, keeping email communication secure while augmenting the protection of incumbent email providers.

The Benefits of Gateway-less Email Security

Gateway-less solutions are growing in popularity due to their ease of deployment, ability to augment rather than replace software platform security, and appeal to organizations of all sizes. Cybersecurity analysts are now recommending gateway-less solutions as a viable email security option.

Gateway-less email security solutions stand behind security solutions organization are already using, helping to reduce the cost and complexity of email security deployments, which can be especially beneficial for smaller organizations with less complex email environments. Gateway-less solutions run entirely in the cloud with little to no infrastructure cost and require little to no security policy customization. This benefits both smaller organizations with lean IT departments and less resources, as well as larger organizations that are looking to cut costs, reduce resource use, and allow critical IT staff to focus on other areas of the enterprise.

When evaluating gateway-less email security solutions, organizations should seek out products that:

The Bottom Line

As the work-from-home shift transitions into a much more acceptable, prevalent, and permanent hybrid working environment, some organizations are choosing to stay with a traditional email security gateway, while others are moving toward gateway-less email solutions that augment the security of software platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Organizations that do so should seek out a gateway-less email security partner with advanced detection capabilities, access to long-standing threat intelligence based on long-running market and industry experience, and the ablity to deliver best-in-class efficacy that is difficult to match via a tried-and true solution platform that can reduce complexity, reduce organization risk, and bring email and collaboration security under one roof through a single pane of glass.

About the Author

Thom Bailey leads the Strategy & Evangelism team at Mimecast, the authority in email security, targeted threat protection, and data governance. With over 20 years in product marketing and product management experience, Thom's passion has been one of understanding the intersection of IT operations and security.