How AI Email Security Is Redefining The Security Landscape in 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are embedded within email security solutions and can now help prevent advanced phishing, ransomware, and identity attacks.

Legacy email security solutions that send out static signature updates or rely on basic behavior analytics will provide little to no help in stopping advanced email attacks generated by WormGPT, FraudGPT, and now DarkGPT.

Trustifi, a global leader in cloud-based email security powered by AI, understands its clients’ challenges regarding hackers leveraging generative AI to create malicious emails. Trustifi’s commitment to innovation propels its solution to the top of the modern realm of email security by delivering a mature AI filtering engine solution.

Trustifi’s cloud-based platform blocks potential attacks and other suspicious activities through its innovative adaptive controls powered by AI.

How AI Is Transformation Email Security?

Email attacks are no longer single-minded, with misspelled words and poor grammar. Phishing emails have become sophisticated, created in several languages with local dialects and near-perfect sentence structures. Traditional email threat detection methods can no longer detect an AI-enabled advanced threat.

• AI tools can analyze email patterns to detect phishing by spotting unusual deviations.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows AI to analyze and interpret email content, helping to detect potential phishing threats like urgent language or suspicious links/attachments.
• Infected attachments are frequently used to distribute malware to a computer. AI can perform sandbox analysis to identify malicious content in attachments before they reach their intended destination.
• AI can detect malicious websites associated with phishing emails by analyzing URLs to determine if they are potential phishing sites.

Using AI for email security enhances companies’ abilities to manage risks effectively. AI introduces advanced tools and methods for threat detection, allowing organizations to detect phishing campaigns that could otherwise go unnoticed and respond more swiftly to successful phishing attacks.

Key Benefits of AI in Email Security.

AI delivers exceptional email security benefits by leveraging the ability to capture, process, and use email security telemetry data for better predictive security prevention. Legacy solutions using legacy alerts filled with false positives and negatives continue to overburden security operations teams (SecOps) with endless incident response cases and threat modeling.

Thanks to the AI’s ability to process telemetry data without human intervention, valuable insight was gained through data sets incorporating failed phishing attempts and other attacks. This valuable insight into suspicious emails gives the organization very early and accurate visibility into attack methods. Traditional security measures combined with human error in older incident response processes did not generate this insight into future attacks.

AI-powered systems capture suspicious activities across multiple vectors, including email platforms, account takeover attempts, and social media postings. These powerful tools help organizations enable incident response automation. This automation helps reduce the risk of human analysts’ burnout, lower incident response times, and improve the SecOps teams’ preemptive measures capability.

AI Techniques in Email Security.

Developing an AI system to detect malicious emails is challenging and requires thorough process analysis calculations. No one mathematical model can fully solve this problem. Instead, a layered approach combines different AI models.

• The AI engines independently evaluate these models and compare their results to create an ‘anomaly score’ that helps identify unusual emails in the organization’s traffic.
• AI systems analyze large email datasets to detect patterns in malicious emails, updating their models and rules accordingly.
• Training a system in this way is effective because the fundamental patterns in tone and language remain consistent over time, making it easier to identify common characteristics in solicitation attempts.

AI and machine learning can accurately classify emails, reducing mistakes and keeping legitimate emails safe.

Use Cases: What Advancements Does AI Email Security Deliver?

AI email solutions extend advanced security to organizations coping with next-generation phishing attacks. These additional capabilities help organizations with several use cases to help increase their email security protection.

Leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP).

AI uses NLP to analyze emails for malicious content and hacking attempts.

Its sentiment analysis capabilities assist in understanding emails more comprehensively, allowing it to detect malicious intent, harmful content, and hacking attempts.

Filtering advanced spam messages.

AI algorithms effectively filter emails by learning from vast data sets compiled with LLM engines.

Scanning attachments for AI-generated malicious URLs.

AI can scan and analyze attachments and URLs and assess potential harm from malicious attachments.

Collecting threat telemetry for continuous learning.

AI can detect emerging threats by analyzing data from threat intelligence feeds. It monitors network traffic to improve detection and learns to adapt to new threats, staying ahead of cybercriminal developments. This leads to better threat intelligence over time.

Challenges and Considerations in AI Email Security.

Using AI and ML in email security faces challenges. Relying solely on these technologies can be risky because of constant changes. Continuous programming and teaching are required to keep up with developing threats. Human interaction is crucial in helping AI and ML programs improve, as they rely on the data provided to them.

AI can enhance the effectiveness of email threats such as phishing and business email compromise, potentially leading to significant business financial losses. It can also help expedite the research on a target to create business email compromise attacks.

The industry is working to improve this method by using data augmentation techniques to create more training samples from undetected malicious emails, helping the machine learn to identify similar attacks.

Deploying AI Email Security Solutions.

Legacy Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) must reroute MX records to work with Exchange, Microsoft 365, and Google Workplaces. Cloud-based solutions use vendor-provided APIs to interconnect with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspaces.

Advanced AI email solutions work well alongside Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace email security offerings. Using the API or Smart host configurations, integration between AI email security solutions and email providers happens in a few hours. Organizations wanting to layer on additional email protection deployed transparently to their user base will recognize the great value of this additional email security powered by AI by preventing further attacks.

Comparison of AI Email Security Tools.

Knowing which vendor delivers the most exceptional AI email security solution compels each organization to analyze and evaluate the top vendors thoroughly. Each of these AI email solutions provides several services within its platform.

Cost, setup, mature AI filtering engines, and lower cost for ongoing operations are standard success factors organizations should consider when choosing the best AI email security solution to meet their needs.

Here are the top AI email security solutions in 2024.

Trustifi

Trustifi continues to receive several industry awards and 5-star peering reviews for their exceptional delivery of advanced AI-email inbound security with a consolidated and fully integrated cloud-based platform, including data loss prevention (DLP), one-click compliance enablement, and easy-to-use email encryption. The company continues to succeed in the SMB and mid-enterprise marketplace, selling successfully in school districts, wineries, and food store chains.

Pro

Trustifi received positive client reviews highlighting the platform’s ease of use, solid integration between the various protection capabilities, and a simplified license model. The company’s AI email innovation, data tokenization, and security awareness module also receive high praise from their clients and resellers.

Con

Trustifi doesn’t offer a solution for federal customers requiring FedRamp certification.

Darktrace

Darktrace analyzes emails for potentially harmful intentions by studying patterns in language and tone. This helps detect threats like phishing or extortion before they cause harm.

Pro

Darktrace begins data analysis on the first day of deployment to help create its AI filtering capabilities. It also models network traffic and email security telemetry.

Con

Darktrace may mistakenly identify actual threats as harmless, leading organizations to deal with false alarms.

Abnormal Security

Abnormal is an email security company that uses AI technology and cloud-native API architecture to analyze data from various sources and identify abnormal email behavior that may show a potential security threat.

Pro

“Many reviewers positively received the dashboard, automatic email remediation, pricing, and overall effectiveness.:

Con

“Some users complained about occasional false positives and needing more customization options and additional documentation. “

Avanan

Avanan is a cloud email security provider that uses AI and ML to analyze emails for BEC attacks before they reach the inbox. Avanan software integrates with Microsoft 365 Google Workspace and collaborates with other third-party applications like Teams and Slack.

Pro

Avanan is an AI email security platform designed for cloud environments. Organizations are moving to the cloud, making tools like Avanan essential. Customers appreciate its user-friendly interface, detailed reporting, quick deployment, and ongoing detection enhancements.

Con

Customers have reported online issues with customer support, false positives, high subscription costs, downtime, and setup hiccups.

Proofpoint

Proofpoint Email Protection is an email threat solution that targets organizations and detects known and emerging dangers. It is intended for large enterprise environments and is equipped to handle the scale and challenges of such infrastructures.

Pro

The software offers a comprehensive set of features designed for large-scale operations. It’s known for its ability to meet larger enterprises’ specific needs and complexities and address these organizations’ challenges.

Con

The solution focuses more on large deployments. Clients still report initial setup and operational support challenges even with their enterprise offerings. Proofpoint’s additional features come at a premium cost and an expensive annual renewal increase.

Ironscales.

Ironscales Protect is a cloud-based email security service that uses AI to protect against email threats like spoofing, malware, and phishing. It also offers phishing simulations and administrator training.

Pro

IronScales has successfully identified and reduced phishing attacks, increasing employees’ knowledge of potential risks.

Con

Customers reported online challenges with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 deployments with Ironscales. Ongoing operational support to enable additional features also has been reported as a challenge for small businesses.

Mimecast.

Mimecast Email Security uses AI detection to protect emails from spam and malware. This solution supports Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace customers, including email archiving and security training.

Pro

Mimecast policies are flexible, allowing administrators to make needed changes from a single console.

Con

Some users have found the administrator interface in Mimecast challenging and complicated, making deployment and daily tasks more difficult.

SpamTitan

SpamTitan uses advanced AI technology, such as sandboxing, antispam, antivirus, etc., to quickly identify email threats. This saves admins time by allowing users easy access to check blocked emails.

Pro

SpamTitan is known for its ease of setup and implementation and robust end-user interface.

Con

Issues with the detection performance resulted in high rates of false positives and false negatives and delays in customer support response times, prompting several complaints

Microsoft 365 (EOP)

“Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is a cloud-based service that helps prevent spam and malware by utilizing security features like URL and domain blocking, antimalware engines, antispoofing protection, and message inspection.”

Pro

Users have reported that EOP’s spam filtering and malware detection are effective, and setup is straightforward for current Microsoft customers.

Con

According to user reports, EOP’s spam filtering and malware detection are effective, and setup is straightforward for existing Microsoft customers.

Graphus

Graphus is an AI-driven email security solution that categorizes emails based on their safety level. It is noted for its effectiveness in catching targeted spear phishing messages, which traditional security tools like Microsoft 365’s built-in security and secure email gateways may overlook.

Pro

Graphus is a reliable product supported by a growing community. It reduces our monthly downtime caused by users clicking on malware links and inquiries.

Con

The user interface allows access to client emails and statistics, but navigation may be challenging because of limited administrative features.

Future Trends in AI Email Security.

AI and ML technologies significantly improve email security by providing better automation, efficiency, accuracy with less management overhead than previous solutions. Organizations are advised to invest in advanced security systems that can address the escalating threat of email phishing attacks, as approximately half of such attacks, including Business Email Compromise (BEC) and credential theft, can circumvent traditional SEGs.

FAQ.

Question 1: Do all email security containers have AI and ML capabilities?

Answer 1: The answer is no. Not all email security solutions contain AI or ML capabilities.

Question 2: How important has AI become for every projection layer within the email security platform?

Answer 2: Excellent question! AI continues to be added to other layers within the email security stack, including data loss prevention (DLP), account takeover, and security awareness training modules.