The emails you want are only the tip of the iceberg compared to what you get. Your Challenge Within the Email Security Gateway (ESG) marketplace, there are numerous vendors with varying options. Each of these vendors claim to be the best fit for your organization and it can be difficult to determine which vendor to choose. Today, ESG technology offers a wide variety of security and IT related functions. An ESG must serve a multitude of functions for the organization as well as meet an array of requirements, all of which can be hard to accurately assess and include confidently. IT security always struggles with costs. An email gateway can become expensive, but it is vital and a strong case must be made for implementation, improvement, or replacement scenarios. Our Advice Critical Insight Get it out to the cloud: Cloud adoption among business functions is already high. Moving email to the cloud is just another step. Take this into consideration when selecting an ESG. The professional attack: They are advancing day in and day out. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and Zero-Day attacks are changing the way organizations deal with threats. Recognize the need for greater visibility and tools that stay on top of these developments. Impact and Result Gain visibility into your organization’s email related security incidents and email volumes. Identify your organization’s requirements of an ESG. Understand what’s new within the ESG market to properly evaluate all capabilities and functions of an ESG. Evaluate ESG vendors and products based on your enterprise requirements. Implement an ESG with supporting policies and processes. Develop standard operating procedures around gateway and email handling to ensure high security value and sustainable benefits from the ESG.

1. Email security needs the respect it deserves:
• Total IT security spend is estimated to be around 30 billion by 2017, with content security, which includes email security, representing only 8% of that spend.
• Content Security is projected to have the smallest annual growth at 6.7%. In comparison Network Security is projected at 7.7% annual growth.
Email security is a critical component of your security
• Email is a core component of business processes
• Although it may not be high on security topical issues today it must be secured
• Compliance issues such as HIPPA and PCI mandates make email security a necessity for many
• Increase of targeted attacks and data breaches put more pressure on all organizations
From here down in this cell should be under the water:
The adversaries using these email based attacks vary in motivation, techniques used and impact to your organization (each group could get a visual with a similar colour and graphic theme among the groups.)
- Hackers – Adversaries breaking into networks for self-fulfillment, bragging rights or some financial gain.
- Nation states – Cyber espionage, sabotage and general cyber warfare are common among nation states as a natural evolution of covert warfare and intelligence gathering.
- Criminal Groups – Generally driven by financial gain. Online fraud and identity theft are carried out using a multitude of spam, phishing and malware attacks.
- Hacktivist Groups – Activism in a digital setting. (Anonymous)
- Bot Net Operators - Hackers, but with a different purpose. They want to compromise a system and take control to carry out other hacking activities.
- Insiders - A disgruntled member of an organization is a constant problem nowadays.
Spam
- Spam and bulk style emails make up the largest volume of emails and are the greatest potential harm to productivity
- Spam is no longer about selling but stealing. It lures people into disclosing personal information or company information. Spam is used to spread bots in order to capture user information and send
back to command and control server.
Phishing
- Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as user names, passwords, or any other sensitive or valuable information by disguising as a trustworthy email address.
- Hackers are trending towards the use of social media content based phishing.
- 15.2% of spam was social media, short of email claiming to be from financial institutions at 15.9%
Targeted Attacks
- Targeted attacks are becoming more and more mainstream and have beat out spam and viruses as what is considered the main security concern.
- Spear phishing is the tactic of using social engineering to craft an email that appears to be from an individual or business to a specific target.
- 95% of targeted attacks, including APTs, began with a spear-phishing attack in 2013
- 31% of targeted attacks are at organizations less than 250
These random Facts that can be used if needed anywhere really:
- In 2012:
o 1 in 414 emails was a phishing attack
o 1 in 291 emails contained a virus
o 23% of email based malware is a URL
o In Q3 2013 global spam volume spiked 125%, almost 4 trillion messages, highest since august 2010
o 77% of security practitioners saw an increase in external threats
o 55% security professionals say securing new technologies is their number one organizational spend showing the industry trend to adopting more technology solutions
o 39% saying they will continue to spend the same
o Only 6% saying they will spend less This statement is used to identify the target audience and the challenge they are trying to overcome Specifically identify the member/role.
Should be adapted from our initial member understanding document. Max length at the analyst’s discretion.
Move your email to the cloud:
- Many back end business operations have already moved to the cloud. More and more functions will move as vendors develop and diversify their offerings for more customers.
- Email security has the benefit of either being with your cloud email provider, or just moving your ESG to the cloud for reduced in house IT strain.
- With cloud security developing as rapidly as it is, there is not much more room for hesitation. It makes sense: if Google can’t protect your email, do you think you can?
This overall insight is the central idea of the Blueprint. The overall insight should also drive the overall creative vision of the document. A well-crafted insight statement is key here. Try to make this
statement short and sweet.
Member Understanding Insights:
- Assume you are a target – size, industry, doesn’t matter anymore. Whether you have valuable information, or are connected, or are just an average user, you’re a target.
- Growth rate of email usage are decreasing due to increase in other communication forms like instant messaging, texting, and social networks. But regardless of some decreasing growth trends,
email overall usage is still on the rise and it here to stay. With that undisputable truth you need email communication security: Email Security Gateway (ESG).
- The only constant in security is change. The fact that you are secure one day may not mean anything the next day. The fact of the matter is that you are under attack. You may not know it, but your
systems, network, data and users are all under threat and risk to be compromised with some malicious intention.