In this clip, John Wilson, a senior fellow of threat research for
Fortra, discusses the company's cybersecurity solutions and the increasing threat of email-based fraud. Fortra, previously known as Help Systems, offers a comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio and specializes in addressing the challenges of hybrid IT environments, where organizations have a mix of on-premises and cloud solutions.
Wilson emphasizes the importance of email security and anti-phishing measures. He explains that Fortra's suspicious email analysis solution helps identify potentially malicious emails by analyzing reported messages. While most reported emails turn out to be false alarms or spam, a significant portion falls into the "do not engage" or malicious categories.
Wilson shares insights into the types of threats that reach users' inboxes, noting that response-based threats (without links or attachments) and credential theft are prevalent. He highlights the increasing prevalence of malicious and "do not engage" emails, which have reached a two-year high.
To compare the effectiveness of different security gateways, Wilson conducted a study using Fortra's suspicious email analysis reports. The analysis revealed varying levels of effectiveness among different secure email gateways. The study also compared the performance of different gateways against Office 365's default anti-spam module, showing that the best secure email gateway significantly outperformed Office 365 in blocking threats.
Wilson further delves into response-based threats, discussing the rise of vishing (voice phishing) and other categories like business email compromise, job scams, and tech support scams. He compares the performance of different gateways in blocking these threats, highlighting phishing as a common challenge for all solutions.
In conclusion, Wilson emphasizes the importance of robust email security measures and warns about the increasing risks posed by email-based fraud. He advises organizations to implement effective solutions to protect against these threats.
