Why You Must Use AI for Email Security Against Cyber Threats

AI for email security has become a necessity with the increasing sophistication of such as phishing, malware and data breaches. It is getting harder for people and businesses to identify and protect themselves from these threats. Awareness of these email threats and email security solutions can greatly affect your ability to protect yourself.

This article spreads awareness about the use of AI in email security and explains why you should choose AI email security over traditional email detection tools and security solutions to defend yourself against phishing attacks and fraud.

Table of contents

• Why do we need AI for email security?

• How AI email security defends you from fraud

  • 1. Anomaly detection and behavioral analysis
  • 2. Email content analysis
  • 3. Filtering spam emails
  • 4. Detection of malicious attachments and URLs
  • 5. Threat analysis
  • 6. Incident response and quarantine procedures
  • 7. Deception Technologies and Intelligent Traps
  • 8. Threat intelligence sharing

• Best AI email security tools

• Takeaway

Why do we need AI for email security?

The complexity of email breaches is increasing by the day. Hackers are leveraging machine learning and AI tools to create better-crafted phishing emails or business email compromise (BEC) scams, making them very difficult to distinguish from safe emails. This makes it very difficult for cyber security teams to detect and fight such attacks using traditional means. While humans control the entire process of the safekeeping of confidential information, AI tools empower them to do it better and faster.

How AI email security defends you from fraud

Let's take a look at how helpful AI is for email security and how it aids in today’s email security endeavors.

1. Anomaly detection and behavioral analysis

AI tools can leverage the power of machine learning to learn the normal patterns of communication within an organization and form a baseline of behavior. It can then analyze metadata, email content and sender behavior to detect anomalies that deviate from pre-defined behavioral baseline to identify potential threats.

Libraesva is an AI-powered email security platform that offers adaptive trust, which uses artificial intelligence to learn the usual patterns of communication behavior for organizations & individuals.

Source: Libraesva

2. Email content analysis

AI utilizes natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand the context of the emails received. AI's sentiment analysis capabilities also help it understand these emails more deeply. This enables it to identify emails with malicious intent, harmful content and hacking attempts.

SlashNext is a security solution that uses NLP to detect and prevent credential stealing, BEC, spear-phishing, legitimate link compromise, social engineering scams, ransomware and malware in real time.

3. Filtering spam emails

AI algorithms allow for advanced filtering of emails. The spam filtering system continuously improves by learning from vast data sets daily. These filters can use sentiment analysis and NLP to understand emails better and segregate them from the more important ones. It reduces the chances of spam ending up in your inbox, thereby reducing the chances of attacks through phishing emails and other email threats.

Vade, for instance, is an anti-spam solution that uses AI, machine learning and Deep Learning to provide advanced spam detection features.

4. Detection of malicious attachments and URLs

AI can scan and analyze attachments and URLs in emails in real time. It can examine file types, behavior and reputation of the attachments and the link to detect malicious attachments or suspicious links that may lead to risky websites.

Trustifi’s Inbound Shield provides this service to you where it performs a deep analysis of links based on content, metadata and domain reputation and even scans links within files, zip and achieve files, trojans, viruses and malware. Look at the image below to understand how their multilayered protection works.

5. Threat analysis

AI can collect and analyze vast amounts of data from threat intelligence feeds and identify emerging threats. It can continuously monitor network traffic, trends, patterns and other indicators of compromise, which enables better detection. This makes for better threat intelligence over time which keeps getting better. AI can continuously learn and adapt based on new threats and techniques. So it grows with the cybercriminals to stay ahead of emerging threats.

Darktrace is one such solution that helps organizations protect themselves from attacks by better analyzing historical data and stopping future attacks.

6. Incident response and quarantine procedures

AI automates incident response and quarantine procedures when a potential threat is identified. It can monitor emails in real time and take actions based on predefined workflows. This can streamline the incident response processes and mitigate risks more efficiently. Ironscales, for instance, provides you with AI-powered incident response.

7. Deception Technologies and Intelligent Traps

AI email security systems will incorporate deception technologies and intelligent traps in the future. They will be integrated closely with the email security systems as virtual decoys to learn and understand the hackers' tactics and techniques. These decoys will then be able to provide valuable insights into the emerging threats to help organizations stay ahead of the hackers.

Cynet, for instance, is a company that offers deceptive technology in its security solutions. AI can help speed up the setting up of such technologies.

8. Threat intelligence sharing

Collaboration and sharing of information will become important in AI email security. Organizations will leverage AI to gather and analyze information on various online threats from different sources like industry pages and security vendors. This will enhance the capability of AI email security systems to defend themselves against hackers.

Miemcast is a security provider that talks much about threat intelligence sharing and how it can help organizations prepare for attacks before they even begin.

Best AI email security tools

The use of AI by email security solutions and tools are becoming increasingly common in today’s landscape. Take a look at which applies to your organization.

1. Proofpoint: Proofpoint is a comprehensive email security solution to effectively block unwanted, malicious and impersonating emails. Its AI engine analyzes and classifies content and allows it to prioritize its protection. It also has the ability to detect BEC or malware-free threats using machine learning imposter classifiers.

Pricing: Custom pricing after a 30-day free trial.

2. Ironscales: Ironscales is another powerful email security provider that stops advanced attacks like business email compromises and account takeovers that get past Secure Email Gateways. It claims it is the only one in the field to combine AI with human insights. It also provides features like automated incident response, phishing attack simulation and security awareness training and advanced malware and URL protection.

Pricing: The starter plan is available for free for up to 500 mailboxes. Paid plans have custom pricing.

3. Graphus: Graphus is an AI-driven email security platform that focuses on preventing phishing attacks, account takeovers and BEC scams. TrustGraph is a notable feature that analyzes relationships and communication patterns to identify anomalies and potential threats.

Pricing: Custom pricing

4. Tessian: Tessian has a context-aware AI-based defense that detects and prevents email attacks. It uses a blend of machine learning and heuristic models to automatically determine if emails contain security threats based on Tessian Data Layer, Content X-Ray and Behavioural Analytics insights. This means that it can do deep content inspection, behavior analysis and get threat intelligence insights from multiple sources to detect anomalies and malicious emails.

Pricing: Custom pricing

5. Vade: Vade is a cybersecurity company that leverages AI algorithms and analyzes billions of data points to detect and block malicious emails in real-time. Their threat detection capabilities also enable them to identify new and evolving email threats.

Pricing: You can request a free trial, after which they have custom pricing plans.

Takeaway

In conclusion, AI for email security is a blessing that allows email security providers to enhance their productivity and provide features that would otherwise be impossible. AI email security solutions have also helped organizations maintain their defense against the ever-growing threat of a cyber attack. The future has to hold a balanced collaboration of human insights and artificial intelligence to win this battle against online threats.