Blue Coat Launches Mail Threat Defense For Protection Against Cyber Espionage

Blue Coat Systems announced the addition of Mail Threat Defense to its portfolio of Advanced Threat Defense (ATD) solutions. With the addition of mail threat defense, Blue Coat provides in-depth protection against the common trifecta of attack vectors – web, email and network –for unparalleled defense against advanced threats across the enterprise.

Email is a potent channel for malicious intent and highly successful targeted attacks. According to Verizon 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report, the email attack vector accounts for 80% of APT malware used for cyber-espionage. Blue Coat Labs recently uncovered Inception Framework, a highly sophisticated malware attack targeting military diplomats and business executives using infected email attachments as one of the many layers of the cyberattack framework.

“As email phishing and other malware schemes grow increasingly sophisticated and deceptive, even the most well-meaning, cautious employees can be fooled into clicking on a malicious attachment, leading enterprises to seek additional protection for this critical but sometimes overlooked threat vector,” said Dr. Hugh Thompson, CTO and senior vice president of Blue Coat. “The majority of work communication happens over email. The more messages you receive, the less amount of time you may devote to reading each message thoroughly, and if you’re using a mobile device, the greater risk of being duped. Our new Mail Threat Defense allows employees to be both productive and protected.”

Mail Threat Defense

Blue Coat’s Mail Threat Defense protects against email-borne malware and extracts malicious content without disrupting message flow. Mail Threat Defense balances speed, user autonomy and enterprise security needs with the following capabilities:

·         Pre-delivery inspection: Examines email attachments and tests embedded links for malicious activities before the email reaches the end user

·         Configurable Policies: Determines course of action to the message and attachment based on level of risk and end-user, including quarantines, warnings, removals, and replacements

·         Global Intelligence: Integrates with the Blue Coat Global Intelligence Network providing threat sharing from more than 15,000 enterprises around the world to quickly identify new threats and fortify frontline defenses.

With the addition of the Mail Threat Detection, Blue Coat’s comprehensive Advanced Threat Defense solution allows organizations to reduce risk by building an adaptive security strategy to detect, contain and resolve advanced threats and attacks across the top three threat vectors—web, email and network. By combining best-in-class protection, malware analysis, and big data security analytics with real-time global threat intelligence, Blue Coat enhances existing security infrastructures with powerful contextual awareness.

Availability

Blue Coat’s Mail Threat Defense solution for on-premise and cloud based deployment, will be available beginning this summer. Blue Coat also plans to support email traffic on its Content Analysis system in summer of 2015.