Protecting Office 365 and G Suite in a Cyber Pandemic World

By, Danielle Guetta, Product Marketing, Threat Prevention

The post pandemic world might sound like a sweet dream right now, but it is too soon to celebrate. Organizational structures are bound to change and very possibly continue to adopt remote work as a way of life, and that could be the start of a cyber pandemic, especially when it comes to cloud mailboxes and collaboration apps.

The digital transformation and cloud adoption is nothing new. In 2019 Microsoft reported an increase of over 40 million in Office 365 active users in just one year, and this trend is very likely to accelerate exceptionally in a post-pandemic world. This becomes a potential cyber-disaster when you consider the fact that phishing attacks nowadays use meticulous social engineering techniques that are designed to exploit human error, and employees tend to be less careful when they are at the comfort of their home.

Cyber criminals capitalize on anything trending. According to a Check Point Research article, in April 2020 Google reported a daily amount of more than 18 million Coronavirus themed malware and phishing emails through Gmail, on top of 240 million Coronavirus related spam messages. In addition, both Microsoft Teams and Google Meet were used as an impersonation tool to execute super targeted and sophisticated phishing attacks.

One example is an impersonation attack, where users fell victims to phishing emails with the subject “You have been added to a team in Microsoft Teams“. The emails contained a malicious URL hidden in the ‘Open Microsoft Teams’ button, which once clicked would download a malware to the user’s machine. This rise in targeted attacks through cloud mailboxes and collaboration apps is a direct result of the growing use of these applications by remote workers. This example is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we can expect on the day after the Coronavirus pandemic is over and the cyber pandemic is here.

Let us go back for just a moment to the email security world before the Coronavirus pandemic. According to the Verizon DBIR, in 2018 over 90% of attacks on organizations started from a malicious email. Can you imagine what is to happen on the day after, when a large portion of organizations’ workforce is regularly working remotely and relying heavily on their cloud mailboxes and collaboration apps to complete important tasks, share sensitive information and send confidential files? How can security admins regain control in a world where most of the organization’s assets are in the cloud, shared through different not-so-secure applications, with cloud mailboxes instead of the familiar on-prem exchange? The answer is an automated, cloud-based solution that is designed for the dynamic nature of cloud environments and the growing use of collaboration apps in a cyber pandemic world.

CloudGuard SaaS is a prevention-first security solution, designed to deliver superior cyber protection for cloud-based emails and office suite applications such as Office 365 and G Suite, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, and catches on average 30% more than platform-provided solutions. The solution’s amazing catch rate lies mainly in its API-based architecture. As an inline, cloud-based security solution, it is the last line of defense, and as such, it is trained on what platform-provided solutions miss, using AI. CloudGuard SaaS is invisible to attackers and does not require any network changes, and therefore offers a more resilient protection against sophisticated and targeted attacks.

Once deployed, CloudGuard SaaS instantly scans cloud mailboxes and applications for already exiting threats. When a user receives an email, file, or message through an Office 365 or G Suite application, it triggers its security engines to examine the shared file for malicious content, and determines if it needs to be quarantined, cleaned, removed, etc. APIs analyze data in transit and at rest to make sure no malicious content penetrates or propagates within the organization, all from a single, user-friendly management platform and a single license for email, office, and enterprise applications.

The Coronavirus pandemic will disappear. The cyber pandemic is here to stay.

Stay safe. Act now – Start protecting Office 365 and G Suite with a free trial of CloudGuard SaaS

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