Cybersecurity is a competitive market and wading through all of the email security and anti-phishing solution claims is no easy task. To that end, turning to an industry expert can be reassuring. Enterprise Security Group, better known as ESG, is an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm that provides market intelligence and insight to the global IT community. In their recent ESG Showcase entitled, “Quashing the Phishing Epidemic,” senior analyst Dave Gruber spoke to an often-overlooked aspect of phishing attacks that, when implemented properly, can deliver a sharp reduction in successful phishing attacks. It involves education – the right way.
Outsmarting the Best of Us
The biggest culprit in enabling successful email phishing scams is us. Humans. Employees. End-users. Whichever name you choose, email phishing scams outsmart the best of us and one single click on a malicious link or fake attachment can start a fast cyber-slide of destruction. In fact, 85% of data breaches are caused by human error.1
Most importantly – human error or not - employees are a company’s single greatest asset. And, as business owners and managers, it is our responsibility to protect them whenever possible. This means giving employees every advantage when it comes to their role in email security, data loss prevention, spear-phishing attempts, and more.
Becoming Part of the Solution
According to Gruber, “New, innovative email security solutions that directly involve the end-user are showing real promise in combating email-borne threats.” In particular, ESG’s report points to the need for “on-the-spot education and awareness of attack techniques” because they lead to a sharp reeducation in successful email-borne attacks.
As with most solutions, there is a wrong way and a right way.
The Wrong Way
Gruber puts it best when he says, “When not done right, inserting banners into both inbound and outbound emails has the potential to disrupt workflow. When banners are over-used or too standardized, they become noise that is quickly disregarded, voiding their effectiveness, creating banner blindness.” He also adds, “Banners that utilize standardized text are often ignored as well, in addition to creating an opportunity for attackers to evade them by impersonating standardized banner text. Attackers can also leverage CSS techniques to hide or obscure standard banners.”
In short, just because an email security platform boasts having banners, doesn’t mean theirs are effective. It takes a lot more.
The Right Way
“There is significant science behind the effective incorporation of banner-like elements in a real-time assistant,” says Gruber. If you’re not sure what that means, consider INKY’s Email Assistant.
In the past, you have heard it referred to as the INKY Banner. However, compared to other products in the market, the term ‘banner’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s so much more than a set of warning messages. Why? Because on top of intelligently eliminating security threats by blocking malicious emails, it assists employees, in real-time, to handle suspicious emails.
INKY’s Email Assistant provides users with immediate insight into specific issues within the email they’ve just opened. Whether it is differentiating between trustworthy colleagues and questionable senders, detecting a fake logo embedded in your email, or taking a deeper look behind an email address in order to warn of potential fraud, the INKY Email Assistant delivers the level of insight that keeps companies safe and while improving their employees’ email security decision making.
INKY’s Email Assistant is also right in line with what ESG has found to be the secret ingredient in the fight against phishing. In their report, ESG shared, “the insertion of a highly optimized, real-time email assistant can result in up to a 95% reduction of successful phishing attacks.” Those are the kind of results every company should aspire to have.
Read Gruber’s full report entitled, ESG Showcase: Quashing the Phishing Epidemic.
Give Your Employees the Very Best Email Security Tool
INKY helps companies secure email using a cloud-based security platform that proactively and instantly scans inbound, internal, and outbound emails to eliminate phishing and malware. The platform intelligently eliminates security threats by blocking malicious emails while assisting employees in real-time to handle suspicious emails. See for yourself what the INKY Email Assistant can do for you by scheduling a free demonstration.
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INKY is an award-winning, cloud-based email security solution developed to proactively eliminate phishing emails and malware while simultaneously providing real-time assistance to employees handling suspicious emails so they can make safer decisions. INKY’s patented technology incorporates sophisticated computer vision, machine learning models, social profiling, and stylometry algorithms to effectively sanitize emails, rewrite malicious links, detect and block security threats, mitigate sender impersonation, and more. Cost-effective and powerful, the INKY platform was developed for mobile-first IT organizations and works seamlessly on any device, operating system, and mail client. Learn more about INKY™ or request an online demonstration today.