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eck, we would
main have any
th the recipient?
hole? Does it
y similar to other
t time we’ve seen
this user? Has
tion ever shared
Has any user ever
ly asking the wrong
ckers know the
ey can skirt by these
ds by paying just a
ains.
y in
n from an attacker’s
ed one email to
to the kingdom, so
few thousand new
itably pay off. And
ong as it’s working
ckers are doing.
ins consistently
ntil these
ed with enough
e that the domains
thousands or
could have been
frastructure is
will abandon it and
and deploy a new
continues. Like
le’, these legacy
to hammer down
ails – all the while
are being created
in the thousands in preparation for the next
campaign. This is the ‘Domain Game’ and
it’s a hard game for defenders to win.
Asking the right questions
Thankfully, the solution to this problem is
as simple as the problem itself. It requires a
movement away from the legacy approach
and towards deploying technology that
is up to par with the speed and scale of
today’s attackers.
In the last two years, new technologies
have emerged that leverage AI, seeking to
understand the human behind the email
address. Rather than inspecting incoming
traffic at the surface-level and asking binary
questions, this paradigm shift away from this
insufficient legacy approach asks the right
questions: Not simply ‘are you malicious?’,
but crucially: ‘do you belong?’
Informed by a nuanced understanding
of the recipient, their peers and the
organisation at large, every inbound,
outbound and internal email is analysed in
context, and is then re-analysed over and
over again in light of evolving evidence.
Asking the right questions and
understanding the human invariably
sets a far higher standard for acceptable
catch rates with unknown threats on first
encounter. This approach far outpaces
traditional email defences which have
proven to fail and leave companies and their
employees vulnerable to malicious emails
sitting in their inboxes.
Rather than desperately bashing away at
blacklisted domains and IP addresses in an
ill-fated attempt to beat the attackers, we
can change the game altogether, tilting the
scales in favour of the defenders – securing
our inboxes and our organisations at large. •
www.intelligentcio.com