Small Business, Big Risks: Why Email Security Can’t Be Overlooked – The BullsEye Guide

October 27, 2024

We’ve all received those suspicious phishing emails, right? They might claim to be from UPS, Amazon, Microsoft, or any number of companies. While these emails often seem like obvious scams, you might be thinking, “I would never fall for one of these; I’m too smart for that!” Unfortunately, you could be mistaken.

Firstly, let’s understand how email servers work: Inbound email is sent and carried over using the SMTP protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which is used by mail servers to send and receive mail over the internet. Once it’s received by the sender’s mail server, it forwards the request to the recipient’s mail server, which then delivers it to the inbox using IMAP (Internet Messaging Access Protocol). IMAP acts as a gateway between a computer and a mail server.

According to AAG IT, approximately over 323 thousand users fell victim to phishing attacks in 2021, despite Google’s cybersecurity measures to block 99.9% of phishing attempts. (AAG IT, 2024). So, how do we differentiate between a “legitimate email” and a phishing email? We often look at the sender—where is this email originating from? What is the content of this email? However, these methods can still lead to false negatives. This is because phishing emails are becoming more sophisticated, making it harder to differentiate.

You may have received a legitimate email from Google, for example, but did you question the legitimacy of that email? Probably not. As humans, we often make impulsive decisions without questioning them, especially if the action seems urgent. Attackers leverage this behavior, which is what makes phishing an extremely effective method. But there are still ways to mitigate this risk.

At BullsEye Defenses, we block and investigate known phishing campaigns when they hit your organization’s inbox, lowering the chance of a successful phishing attempt.  The BullsEye Security Operations Center (SOC) confidentially monitors inbound senders to your organization and compares them to previously sent domains to analyze the legitimacy of the sender. If it’s positive we alert you, and stop these attacks from causing further damage. As much as you train your employees, mistakes happen; we are human after all!

Attacks are becoming more sophisticated, with tactics like spoofing. In simple terms, attackers send a forged email from your trusted domain without authentication. This puts your employees and customers at risk. According to ScienceDirect, Over 3.1 billion domain spoofing emails are sent per day, making this tactic increasingly prevalent  (ScienceDirect, 2024).

There are ways to mitigate this. The BullsEye team deploys DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). What does the DMARC framework do? In simple terms, DMARC only allows authenticated emails to be sent from a domain, which rejects forged emails from reaching their destination. The BullsEye SOC endlessly monitors blocked and successful spoofing attempts before they can cause damage. Unfortunately DMARC still isn’t widely used, hence why this tactic is on the rise. BullsEye spoof rejection, in conjunction with our BullsEye campaign block process, lowers the chances of a successful phishing attempt in your organization to below 35%.

There is also a clear link between phishing and more severe attacks, such as ransomware. According to ScienceDirect, phishing is the most common entry point for ransomware attacks, accounting for 41% of incidents (ScienceDirect, 2024). Phishing remains one of the oldest cybercrime methods, still highly effective due to the exploitation of human vulnerabilities.

Educating our employees is the simplest first step we can take, but again, we are human—we make mistakes! Implementing the BullsEye XDR helps lower the success rate of these attacks. Our BullsEye basic XDR plan is the most cost-effective way to cover almost all of your organization, including email security. Want to learn more? Check out BullsEye Defenses XDR to learn more.