Minimize threats and spot email scams with an ATP solution
Scams, phishing, and malware lurk in email inboxes. And they can each look quite convincing, with new variations and sophisticated tricks showing up every year.
There’s a tool you should know about for guarding your business from email-based cyber attacks: Advanced Threat Protection (called ATP for short, or sometimes even ATD for Advanced Threat Detection).
ATP solutions in a nutshell
If a hacker or scammer wants to target a business, the easiest way is to waltz in through the digital front door disguised as a legitimate email. The biggest threats come from:
- Actively engaging with the sender
- Clicking a shady link
- Opening or downloading an attachment.
What ATP solutions do is identify the hallmarks of these unsafe senders, content, links, or attachments before the email hits your inbox, so you have an extra set of eyes ready to spot a scam or cyber attack and give you a heads up.
Safeguard your business … and team efficiency
There are several ATP options out there, so make sure to talk to your IT vendor about their recommendations. If your team uses Office 365, you may be able to add ATP on quite affordably. Here’s a look at the potential benefits of using a good ATP solution at work.
Virus protection
ATP scans through the bit pattern in an attachment and compares it against previous scans. If the attachment seems legit, it passes on to your inbox. If it is out of place, it goes to this really fascinating place called a “sandbox” where the ATP program can safely open the attachment and see if it acts as a virus.
If this happens, the virus and email are deleted and your ATP solution logs the details to protect you even better and faster in the future. So does the process of testing attachments before you receive them in your inbox slow work down? Not really. The scanning and testing takes just a minute or two.
Phishing protection
We’re trusting of pages and links that we’re familiar with, and scammers and phishers take advantage of that fact. If an email has a link that is mislabeled, or the link goes to a shady website that is made to look like a legitimate company (say, your bank), the ATP program will log the info and prevent the message from hitting the inbox.
Zero-day or zero-hour protection
Virus protection should always be multi-layered, and APT is a great layer to add on to your anti-virus solution. Some ATP tools can guard your system from threats on the same day they’re discovered, and some can even catch and block malware within an hour.
Spam-free inboxes
Most email service providers today do a good job of marking unwanted advertisements and suspicious emails as “spam,” but a clogged spam inbox can still hamper employee efficiency.
Plus, if someone engages with a message sender or attachment in the spam inbox and exposes your business to malware or a phishing scam, what good was the spam filter anyway? Some ATP solutions can be configured to automatically delete spam, so your team doesn’t waste time sorting through (or dangerously engaging with) it.
Ask us about email safety and ATP
Varay is your trusted partner in securing your business from email scams and malware. Get in touch and find the best solutions for securing and educating your team.
Contact us today to beef up your cyber security.
