decrypting myths
controls, or the first line of defence
when securing a network is analysing its
traffic and firewall, block and intrusion
protection systems, as well as antimalware,
which guards against viruses
and other forms of malware.
It goes beyond signature-based
detections and includes heuristic
features that can scan for suspicious
patterns and activities.
Preventing or limiting the consequences
of an attack calls for more than
just enhanced email security. Any
preventative measures need to be part
of a larger strategy of cyber resilience
that embraces backup and recovery,
Business Continuity and compliance.
Why should CIOs consider
investing in additional thirdparty
tools to build out defence
in depth strategies for their
office suite?
By integrating different protective
mechanisms from different vendors,
the defence in depth model eliminates
security gaps that threats can fall through.
Businesses should be aware of the gaps
in the security coverage provided by
Microsoft and compensate accordingly.
A comprehensive way to do this is by
adopting a defence in depth security
strategy and employing a range of
trusted third-party security solutions.
Of course, the advantage of a defence
in depth strategy speaks to the fact that
Microsoft cloud and application security
affords a reasonable level of protection.
However, third-party solutions are
designed to offer more advanced
features than the native security tools on
Microsoft 365.
It also allows an enterprise to sidestep
the limitations of a security monoculture,
incorporating third-party solutions into
your security environment forces a cyber
thief to pick an additional set of locks.
Cybercriminals often subscribe to
Microsoft 365 themselves and will
conduct dry runs to test the viability of
the attack strategies before setting them
into motion.
Deploying third-party defences deprives
them of this sort of strategy, forcing them
to operate on unfamiliar territory.
What best practice approach
should CIOs and CSOs take to
ensure a long-term robust email
security strategy?
Organisations need to implement a
cyber resilience strategy that can
address the diverse set of email threats
and offer robust continuity options to
remedy unplanned downtime.
They also need the ability to recover
lost, deleted or corrupted data after an
attack, and to evolve from a perimeterbased
discipline to a more pervasive
one. They need to adopt a strategy that
helps address threats in three distinct
zones – the email perimeter being the
first one, the inside organisation or
network being the second one and then
beyond the perimeter is the third one.
Ignoring the gaps that could come with
relying on single vendors dramatically
increases your risk profile and potential
for negative business impact.
Werno Gevers, Regional Manager –
Mimecast Middle East
Downtime is also
a consideration
when using cloud
platforms like
Microsoft Office 365.
How can organisations
ensure resilience and
business as usual?
Email access is critical to Business
Continuity management. While
services like M365 are generally
reliable and don’t experience many
long-term outages, localised outages
are not uncommon.
Short outages can have serious
consequences and users typically
will turn to personal email accounts,
bypassing corporate security and
increasing the likelihood of a successful
email attack or data leakage.
Another key challenge faced by
businesses during an outage is access
to information, as well as personal
emails which are not captured by a
company’s archiving and backups.
So best practice dictates that any
backup be stored in a completely
separate infrastructure from the primary
data source.
Email downtime results in a loss
of revenue, negative impact on the
customers and customer services and a
drop in user productivity. Downtime is a
reality which organisations must face.
Whether email is on-premise or in
cloud services like M365, it’s important
to have a continuity solution that lets
you keep email flowing, whether
impacted by severe disruption
or natural disaster or unplanned
maintenance or migration.
In order to achieve true cyber
resilience, businesses need to work
with a limited number of highly
trusted vendors who are proficient in
integrating their solutions into an Office
365 environment. u
www.intelligentciso.com | Issue 29
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