Zero-day attacks remain a global security challenge, even with continued patching and software updates for endpoints, mobile devices, and systems. The hackers develop an exploit against exposed attack surfaces with a known vulnerability while catching clients between patch cycles.
Email security faces a similar attack vector called a “zero-click attack.” This email message attack vector continues to make headlines because the attack does not require user interaction.
This article discusses the challenge of stopping a successful zero-click attack from happening and what solutions are available to help stop these malicious messages from reaching users’ inboxes. Many email security solutions focus on post-delivery protection but have yet to prevent these attacks. Cloud-based email security solutions like Trustifi delivers pre-delivery protection to organizations stopping zero-click attacks.
Zero-Click Attacks Becoming a Big Problem Globally
Zero-click attacks are cyber-attacks that do not require input or human interaction from the target. This method is undetectable, does not rely on social engineering or deceptive tactics, and does not require the user to click on links or download files. Even highly skilled security teams may need help identifying and preventing this attack.
Cyber attacks target a range of high-value targets, including organizations, governments, small businesses, and individuals. State-sponsored attacks often use the zero-click approach to access companies for significant financial gain by selling data or holding ransom for third parties such as contractors, suppliers, and ecosystem partners.
In 2021, Citizen Lab discovered Apple’s messaging apps program as a zero-click iPhone spyware exploit named “FORCEDENTRY.”
The spyware was installed on devices belonging to members of the European Parliament, Saudi officials, legislators, jurists, journalists, and members of civil organizations and their families.
Zero-Click Bypassing Email Security Post-Delivery Protection
Zero-click vulnerability attacks aim to bypass legacy email security, posing a challenge for users to safeguard themselves. Mobile devices used by employees for both personal and work use are a particular concern as they are highly vulnerable to zero-click attacks against their email content.
“A zero-click hack can exploit devices, including the operating system using a data verification loophole vulnerability.”
Most software has a data-verification function and adaptive controls to help prevent cyber breaches exploiting known and unknown software vulnerabilities.
Legacy thinking around email security solutions, secure email gateways (SEG), and post-delivery protection do little to stop a zero-click attack. These older strategies served a purpose when email attacks became dormant. If an email had a malicious link that required user interaction before becoming an exploit attack, these solutions could quarantine and extract the message from the user inboxes.
None of these strategies stop a zero-click attack.
The Trustifi Advantage: Integrated, Pre-Delivery, Ease-of-Use
Trustifi, a global leader in advanced email security, understands the complexity of stopping a zero-click attack. International service providers and national organizations rely on Trustifi’s cloud-based platform to deliver the needed capabilities to protect their users from all email security attacks. The company delivered one of the most comprehensive email security platforms to the market with features that offer value, protection, and scale.
The effectiveness of pre-delivery email security by Trustifi is the proven method to stop zero-click attacks. To stop zero-click attacks, organizations need to deploy several layers of email security protection, including:
- Anti-virus
- Anti-Malware
- Anti-Spam
- Anti-Bot
- AI-Powered Threat Metrics
- Domain Spoofing
Trustifi delivers on these capabilities without the complexity of multiple devices and integration between various security vendors.
These pre-delivery protection layers embedded within Trustifi’s advanced cloud-based platform become fully integrated to help prevent zero-click attacks, ransomware, account takeover, and data theft.
Leveraging a cloud-based solution, organizations can scale up and out to meet their email security needs without affecting their users. Cloud-based solutions enable clients to deploy these features to help stop zero-click attacks from a single console.
Why Trustifi?
Trustifi is a cyber security firm featuring solutions delivered on software as a service platform. Trustifi leads the market with the easiest-to-use and deploys email security products, providing both inbound and outbound email security from a single vendor.
As a global cybersecurity provider of both inbound and outbound email protection, Trustifi currently supports customers from countries including the USA, Canada, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the UK, the Netherlands, India, the UAE, China, and Japan, Cyprus, the Philippines, and more. The company has also developed “One-Click Compliance” capabilities that cater to world security regulations, including PDPO for Hong Kong, POPI for South Africa, GDPR for Europe, and LGPD for Brazil.
