Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES)

Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) is not just another email protection solution. It’s an innovative approach that tackles the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, with email accounting for 96% of cybersecurity breaches. In a cloud-centric business environment, the need for advanced email security and protection solutions is more urgent than ever, and ICES is at the forefront of this evolution.

Integrated Cloud Email Security, or ICES, is a cutting-edge email protection methodology that improves the native security capabilities of cloud-based email providers like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Unlike conventional secure email gateways (SEGs), ICES solutions leverage API integration to directly interface with an organisation’s email platform, providing advanced threat detection and prevention without altering mail routing or modifying MX (mail exchanger) records.

ICES employs a multi-layered approach to email security that combines machine learning, natural language understanding (NLU), and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse email content, sender behaviour, and communication patterns. This comprehensive analysis enables ICES to identify and neutralise a range of threats, including zero-day attacks, advanced phishing attempts, and socially engineered attacks that often bypass conventional security measures.

By 2025, Gartner forecasts that 20% of anti-phishing security solutions will be API-integrated with email platforms. ICES is a testament to this adoption, providing an API-based integration that offers several advantages over traditional email security solutions. It allows for real-time scanning and analysis of both inbound and outbound emails, and internal communications. This comprehensive visibility enables ICES to detect and prevent threats from within the organisation, such as compromised accounts or insider threats.

Another significant aspect of ICES is its ability to provide contextual security awareness training. By delivering timely, in-line prompts to users when potentially risky emails are detected, ICES reinforces security best practices and helps cultivate a security-conscious organisational culture. It also analyses historical email data to establish baseline communication patterns for individual users and departments. This behavioural analysis helps identify anomalies that may indicate account takeover attempts or other suspicious activities.

ICES represents the evolution of email security. It addresses the limitations of SEGs and the native security features of cloud email providers. By continuously learning from new threats and adapting its detection algorithms, ICES provides dynamic protection that evolves alongside the threat landscape.

Integrated Cloud Email Security seamlessly integrates with cloud email platforms, leveraging advanced technologies to provide comprehensive protection. Here’s an overview of how ICES functions:

1. API integration: ICES solutions connect directly to cloud email services like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace using APIs. This integration enables real-time monitoring and analysis of email traffic without altering the email flow or requiring changes to MX records.
2. Continuous monitoring: Once integrated, ICES constantly monitors all incoming, outgoing, and internal email communications. This includes not just the email content but also metadata, sender information, and attachment details.
3. Multi-layered analysis: ICES employs a variety of advanced techniques to analyse emails:
   1. Machine Learning algorithms identify patterns indicative of threats.
   2. NLP examines the content and context of messages.
   3. Behavioural analysis establishes baselines for normal user activity and flags deviations.
   4. Reputation scoring assesses the trustworthiness of email senders and domains.
4. Threat detection: By combining these analytical methods, ICES can combat many different threats, including:
   1. Sophisticated phishing attempts
   2. Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks
   3. Zero-day malware
   4. Account takeover attempts
   5. Insider threats
5. Timely protection: When a threat is detected, ICES can take immediate action, such as:
   1. Quarantining suspicious emails
   2. Stripping malicious attachments
   3. Rewriting URLs for safe browsing
   4. Alerting administrators to potential security incidents
6. User guidance: ICES solutions often include features to educate users in real time. For example, they may display warning banners on emails that appear suspicious but aren’t definitively malicious, helping users make informed decisions.
7. Continuous learning and analytics: ICES continuously updates its threat intelligence based on new data and emerging attack patterns. Organisations can also leverage detailed insights into email security trends, threat landscapes, and user behaviour, enabling them to refine their security strategies.

By operating at the API level and leveraging advanced analytics, ICES provides a more dynamic and holistic approach to email security than traditional gateway solutions.

By offering these benefits, ICES provides a more robust, flexible, and efficient approach to email security compared to traditional solutions. This makes it an increasingly popular choice for organisations looking to enhance their defence against email-based threats in the modern cloud-centric business environment.

Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) and Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) solutions represent two different approaches to email security. SEGs, the traditional option, operate by rerouting emails through an external gateway for analysis. They focus on known threats, using signature-based detection to identify malicious attachments, links, and spam. While effective against conventional threats, SEGs often struggle with more sophisticated, socially engineered attacks.

On the other hand, ICES integrates directly with cloud email platforms via APIs, eliminating the need to reroute emails. This integration allows ICES to leverage advanced technologies like machine learning, NLP, and behavioural analysis to detect a broader range of threats. ICES solutions also benefit from its visibility into internal email traffic, which SEGs typically lack.

The key difference lies in their approach to threat detection and integration. While SEGs rely on rule-based systems and known indicators of compromise, ICES employs more dynamic, context-aware methods. This allows ICES to adapt quickly to emerging threats and provide more comprehensive protection against sophisticated attacks. Additionally, ICES solutions often offer features like user education and seamless integration with cloud productivity suites, making them increasingly popular as organisations transition to cloud-based email systems.

ICES solutions can catch these advanced cyber-attacks that often evade traditional email security measures. This comprehensive protection is crucial in today’s world, where attackers constantly develop new techniques to bypass conventional defences.

Proofpoint is setting a new industry standard with its Adaptive Email Security solution, offering unparalleled protection against sophisticated email threats. By leveraging advanced AI and machine learning capabilities, Proofpoint’s ICES solution provides enhanced detection of BEC, social engineering, and lateral phishing attacks that often evade conventional security measures.

Proofpoint’s approach combines behavioural AI-based detection with its unique people-centric security model. This allows organisations to apply adaptive protection to their most at-risk users, as identified by Proofpoint’s Targeted Attack Protection. The solution also offers real-time, contextual warning banners that alert users to potential risks with socially engineered and BEC-type emails, enhancing overall security awareness.

With Proofpoint’s Adaptive Email Security, organisations can benefit from a comprehensive, cloud-native solution that evolves alongside threat actors’ strategies. This innovative approach not only improves threat detection accuracy but also reduces false positives, ensuring that critical business communications remain uninterrupted while maintaining robust protection against email-based attacks. To learn more, contact Proofpoint.