Barracuda Reveals Email Threat Scan for Microsoft Office 365

With the number of advanced threats on the rise and affecting companies of all sizes, Barracuda Networks, Inc. announced availability of Email Threat Scan for Office 365.

It is a cloud-based service that gives customers an view of their email security posture by identifying latent threats within their production corporate email environments. The company recently analyzed 20,000 Office 365 mailboxes and found that 93% of accounts had at least one Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), with an average of 125 threats per account. APTs are sophisticated attacks designed to evade traditional email security filters in order to infiltrate corporate networks and steal sensitive or valuable data.

Available free of charge for a limited time, Email Threat Scan detects APTs, and offers remediation guidance to remove threats and incorporate Advanced Threat Detection into an overall security strategy.

“Both phishing and ransomware are increasing at the rate of several hundred% per quarter, and we believe that trend will continue for at least the next 18-24 months,” said Michael Osterman, president and CEO, Osterman Research. “In fact, in a recent survey, nearly 50% of respondents indicated they had been hit by one or more ransomware attack, and 34% had a phishing attack successfully infiltrate their networks in the last 12 months – representing significant risks for organizations today. Barracuda Email Threat Scan for Office 365 is a great tool to help companies better understand their email security risk profile so that they can put measures in place to reduce those risks.“

“I trust various components of our IT with Barracuda,” said Grant Gardner, manager, IT, Ohio Indemnity. “We moved to Office 365 because of the agility and scale, and at the time didn’t consider layering on additional security. We were aware that our mailboxes likely contained various threats. Running the Email Threat Scan allowed me to clearly visualize where the threats were in our mailboxes, and understand why it’s important to augment Office 365 with Barracuda’s advanced threat detection technology.“

Identify ransomware and other APTs at rest
Email Threat Scan for Office 365 analyzes corporate email accounts – across all email folders including inbox, deleted, junk and sent folders – for APTs like ransomware and phishing. Administrators then receive a detailed report of identified advanced threats found in the Exchange Online account, organized by user and mailbox. The report also provides a view into how those threats may have propagated throughout the organization via infected users, and offers recommendations on how to remediate those threats.

Highlights of report include:

• Threat overview – Number of infected emails and threats, threat profile including what the threat is doing and various information about the threat (where it is, when it was sent, who sent it, whether or not the email was opened), and threats propagating internally

• User snapshot – Users with the most serious threats in their mailboxes, users who sent infected messages and whether or not those messages were read

• Remediation guidance – Recommendations on how best to eliminate threats and reduce risks going forward

“Advanced threats are on the rise and affect companies of every size, yet most people aren’t even aware that some of these particularly dangerous threats are sitting all over their mailboxes,” said Hatem Naguib, SVP and GM, security and business, Barracuda. “We built Email Threat Scan for Office 365 to give customers a comprehensive view of their immediate threat environment and to demonstrate the value of adding an extra layer of sandboxing to protect against these advanced threats. Many of our customers are turning to Office 365, and Barracuda Email Threat Scan and Barracuda Essentials for Office 365 together enable organizations to more safely adopt Office 365. Barracuda offers Office 365 customers a true end-to-end solution to help detect, prevent and recover from malicious email attacks.“

Protection for Office 365
Once an organization runs the Email Threat Scan for Office 365, they can use the information to make informed decisions around their email security strategies. With the launch of Email Threat Scan, the company provides a centrally managed solution to detect, prevent and recover against ransomware and other advanced attacks. Email Threat Scan detects latent infections while Essentials for Office 365 provides the tools required to prevent attacks and to backup critical data to recover from an attack with minimal disruption to BC.

It is an suite of cloud services that combines critical multi-layer security, archiving and backup functionality, including:

• Cloud-based email security – Extends security protection for Office 365 Exchange Online with additional granular controls, as well as multi-layer security against email-born threats and data leaks with encryption, data loss protection, and content inspection of all emails.

• Cloud-based archiving – Assists organizations with compliance retention and eDiscovery requests when used with Exchange, Microsoft Office 365, and other on-premises, cloud or hybrid environments. The firm’s Cloud Archiving Service offers productivity features, including mobile applications for end users to access, search, and retrieve email at any time from any device.

• Cloud-based backup and recovery – Provides IT administrators with real-time backup that can simplify the process of recovering accidentally or maliciously deleted emails and files in Office 365.

Available to MSPs, Essentials for Office 365 and Email Threat Scan enable MSP partners to build a comprehensive email security and data protection offering.

Email Threat Scan is available to company’s authorized resellers, MSP partners and customers at no cost for a limited time.

Essentials for Office 365 is available and includes simple per user licensing available at list price $4.50 per user, per month.

Resources:
Video: Barracuda and Microsoft – It’s Time to Work Together
Office 365 installed base survey infographic
Osterman ransomware white paper
Barracuda ransomware white paper