Benefits of Enhanced Email Protection for Business

Businesses send and receive millions of emails every year. These emails carry important, confidential information that should never fall into the wrong hands. But they do. And this is because malware creators are becoming smarter with how they target businesses. Even when they are not able to intercept emails with sensitive information, they initiate contact by sending messages laced with malicious codes. Sometimes, all it takes is for someone in your office to open the mail, and the entire network is at risk.

To protect business and ensure the integrity of the IT infrastructure, businesses need to deploy email encryption, anti-malware, data loss prevention as well as spam protection. Different vendors offer security systems for each potential attack point, but Proofpoint Essentials ticks all the right boxes. Find out how below:

Control, Everywhere

SMEs face so many challenges they can’t afford to be slow in taking up opportunities. Whatever industry it is, the ability to be flexible at any given time while ensuring safety of client data and business assets is very critical to business survival. For this reason, business solutions need to be portable sometimes, but secure all the time. SME executives can’t afford to access emails only when they are onsite and in the safety of a specific office. They need secure servers everywhere.

Proofpoint Essentials gives businesses that kind of security and flexibility. As a cloud-based solution, there is no need for huge hardware or software installations. Information coming into your email are screened and filtered for harmful messages. This kind of protection ensures security at the internet level before any message reaches the network. Updates and upgrades are done automatically as well. All of these reduce administrative time and costs, freeing up resources and bandwidth space for more productive uses.

Unique SME Problems

Malware creators are using social engineering to target attacks at specific organisations, within specific industries, and across individual geographic locations. Through phishing and email spoofing, malware are now more efficient at exploiting vulnerabilities in your system. As many as 95% of web attacks incorporate social engineering, a 2018 research discovered.

Proofpoint Essentials combats this by employing machine learning technology to provide a level-by-level security analysis of all emails coming into your business inbox. It investigates all attributes in an email to examine texts, images, as well as attachments to detect where malicious codes have been buried. At the same time, the machine learning technology adapts itself to discover and combat new threats as they appear.

Email threats could ultimately lead to data theft especially if ransomware is involved. Proofpoint Essentials provides protection by employing a centrally administered data loss prevention filter that is based on clearly defined security rules. This means rather than individual users actively accessing data storage centres, for example, Proofpoint Essentials automates the process via an email protocol that collects queries from users and then delivers content based on the company’s approved rules. Users do not have direct access to the database, thereby decreasing the risk of illegal access.

The Human Factor

Cyber criminals are creating codes that exploit human interactions. They take advantage of the curiosity in workers and their general willingness to trust links coming from seemingly trustworthy sources to launch attacks on specific businesses. An executive at an HR firm who sees a resume.doc file in an email might not imagine that it could be laced with malicious code to siphon sensitive information from the company’s database.

It’s therefore important for SMEs to have a people-focus in their security-threat analysis. All solutions should also take the human factor into consideration if they are to have a successful campaign against illegal access. Towards this end, Proofpoint Essentials has a dedicated social media protection kit to keep business assets secure. Powered by its Nexgate technology, SMEs can protect themselves against illegal activity on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Emails Are Fundamental

Emails are fundamental to business continuity. They are used to convert leads and satisfy consumer demands. A day without an email service will wreak havoc on any business. Due to the security challenges of free email services, though, businesses are normally motivated to build their own personal messaging infrastructure. All of these come at significant costs in terms of dollars and human capital. Which is why having a complete suite of tools is such an important asset.

Proofpoint Essentials gives you a secure platform without the troubles that come with administering the service on your own. All security updates and deployments are done in the cloud, giving you the piece of mind to run a profitable business.

Emails, by their nature, are insecure. They are built for speed and convenience. Antivirus and anti-malware tools might give you a layer of security. However, with social engineering that allows hackers to attack businesses with laser-precision, it has become imperative for businesses to go beyond basic endpoint protection, to extend advanced protection to emails too.