Introduction: Why Email Security Matters
Email security may seem like old news, but its ubiquity makes it one of the most common entry points for attackers. A recent article found that 75% of targeted cyberattacks begin with a single email. And the threats aren’t decreasing. Artificial intelligence has only made it easier for attackers to launch sophisticated schemes at an even faster pace. So, what’s a business leader to do?
Moving away from email isn’t an option. It plays a critical role in internal, external, and vendor communications. The next step is to up your email security game. Out-of-the-box email solutions lack the features to deal with today’s modern threats. By using a managed email service, you can strengthen your security without creating a burden for IT teams or employees.
What Is Managed Email Security?
Managed email security involves using a third-party service (or services) to scan, monitor, and protect business email systems. These services go beyond the built-in filtering and protection found in Gmail or Microsoft 365 to provide a higher level of customization and defense.
Managed email security providers typically include the following features:
- Anti-phishing and anti-spoofing protection
- Scanning for known threats like malware and ransomware
- Link and attachment analysis
- Email encryption
- Data loss prevention features
- Spam prevention
These features provide a higher level of security and help businesses fend off the latest threats.
2025 Email Threat Landscape: What’s New
Email continues to be a target for attackers, and they are using the latest techniques and technologies to get into employee inboxes and launch attacks. Artificial intelligence has only made it easier for bad actors to impersonate legitimate sources and trick unsuspecting victims.
Phishing: AI & Scalability
Gone are the days of sloppy, misspelled phishing emails. AI has made it easier than ever to craft convincing, professional emails that appear to be real business correspondence. It also drastically cuts down the time needed to craft convincing emails. By being able to send more emails at scale, it increases the likelihood of success. An attacker just needs one person to fall for one email to gain a foothold or launch an attack.
In addition, phishing-as-a-service business models have made it easier than ever for attackers to launch phishing campaigns. Now, almost anyone can launch a phishing attack, even if they lack the technical skills do to it themselves. For businesses, this means that they are likely to face more attacks.
Supply Chain Attacks & Business Email Compromise
Spoofing and impersonating known vendors has become increasingly common. Let’s look at a few examples of how these attacks are carried out. First, an attacker performs OSINT to learn about the vendors or third parties utilized by a company. Then it spoofs the vendor’s email address to send correspondence asking for payment or a change to the payment recipient. There have been many accounts of theft through this method!
For a more realistic example, imagine a company that hires a third party to clean their offices. An attacker would find out the name of the janitorial service (through in-person observation, social media, or publicly available online information) and then set up a very similar email address to the billing contact at the cleaning contact. They may request that the company change their payment process to wire money to a new account. Then the attacker walks away with the cash, the cleaning company is left with an unpaid invoice, and your company is on the hook for the bill.
Another tactic is to compromise the vendor’s email accounts and use those legitimate accounts to send fake invoices or instructions. This is especially troubling because those real emails are highly unlikely to be caught by spam filtering software.
In this scenario, the attacker would compromise the billing contact’s email address (either by guessing the password or through another method) and then use her account to send fake invoices that direct payment to the attacker’s own accounts.
Why Out-of-the-Box Email Solutions Aren’t Secure Enough
Many of these free or low-cost email solutions are not designed to deal with these advanced security threats. Though they do an adequate job of catching known or obvious spam, they are not capable of catching these advanced threats.
Managed email solutions provide more flexibility and customization based on your business needs. You can create custom rules and lists to tighten your perimeter and flag correspondence that doesn’t meet your criteria. These technical enhancements help reduce the burden on your employees and their decision making. If suspicious emails never reach employee inboxes, they cannot be clicked on.
Benefits of Managed Email Security in 2025
Managed email security solutions are fully focused on email security, meaning that they can incorporate zero-day and emerging threats into their threat profile.
Managed solutions enhance the ability of your team to respond to incidents and suspected threats. They also help enforce your security policies and take security decisions out of individual hands.
Investing in these tools also demonstrates your commitment to meeting compliance requirements. In the event of a breach, these tools can help reduce the damage (both in terms of data loss and liability) and help you recover faster.
How to Choose the Right Managed Email Security Provider
There are many different options when it comes to managed email security. You should look for the following features:
- 24/7 monitoring with human response
- Compatibility with your email platform (Microsoft 365, Google, etc.)
- Clear SLAs and reporting
- Data Loss Prevention and encryption included
- Optional: user training or phishing simulation add-ons
Conclusion
Email isn’t going away, and you need to take threats to your business seriously. Your best defense is to invest in proactive, managed email security. If you are ready to protect your inbox with expert-level email security, Breach Point is ready to help. Let us show you how managed email protection can transform your defenses.
