Emails are vital for organizations, and ensuring their security is essential to protect sensitive data, maintain trust, comply with regulations, ensure business continuity, and foster a secure and productive work environment.
Unfortunately, cybercriminals often target emails due to their widespread usage, viewing them as potential gateways to infiltrate other accounts and devices. As a result, email protection is a critical component of a multi-layered security strategy, reducing an organization's attack surface.
In the present times, phishing attacks pose a significant threat to both organizations and individuals, and the adoption of AI can exacerbate this issue. AI empowers cybercriminals to craft more convincing and personalized emails, rendering them more hazardous and harder to identify compared to traditional ones. To safeguard against email account attack vectors, including phishing, spam, and ransomware, organizations can effectively eliminate a common entry point for potential attackers.
Bitdefender Security for Exchange provides a comprehensive suite of security features, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Exchange Server. These features encompass antimalware, antispam, antiphishing, as well as attachment and content filtering. The main objective is to create a secure messaging and collaboration environment while simultaneously boosting productivity.
Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools with an Exchange role can be installed on Microsoft Exchange Servers to protect Exchange users from email threats. Customers can install BEST on any number of Exchange servers if the number of active mailboxes adheres to the license limit.
Security for Exchange automatically integrates with the Exchange Servers, depending on the server's role. For each role, only the compatible features are installed, as described here. During installation, the built-in Exchange Antimalware agent is automatically disabled to avoid undesirable outcomes. It is also advisable to disable any other third-party antimalware/filtering agents already installed on the server to avoid any performance problems on the server. The server may experience a storm-like effect caused for example by file scanning at the same time by both solutions.
The Bitdefender Exchange Protection module integrates with Microsoft Exchange Server through transport agents in order to filter the email traffic for malware, spam, and custom attachment & content detection rules (transport level filtering). A scan can also be done on demand to check all incoming, internal, and outgoing emails. Administrators can create content filtering rules utilizing regular expressions to scan the body and subject of the message to catch email matching criteria based on compliance with regulations such as ID number or insurance number.
One of the most important functionalities is related to Domain IP which allows detecting spoofed emails and thus increases protection. Admins should use this feature to prevent their own domains from being spoofed. Sophisticated usage of domain spoofing may lead to money stealing, for example impersonating email communications between fake CEO and financial department.
Further elaboration on the antispam functionality is provided below in the section Bitdefender Antispam service, where detailed information about its usage and implementation is described. The same engine is utilized for both Exchange and Email protection, ensuring consistent and reliable security measures.
The Exchange quarantine contains both emails and attachments. While the Antimalware module quarantines only email attachments, the Antispam, Content, and Attachment Filtering modules quarantine the entire email. All reports related to Blocked Content and Attachments, Email, and Malware Activity are accessible to the administrator from the GravityZone console.
Detailed information about Security for Exchange configurations can be found at our Bitdefender Support Center here.
Email security is independent of the mail server, enabling swift deployment by merely modifying the MX record to integrate with any email server. This process is akin to a gateway deployment, where all incoming and outgoing emails are routed through Bitdefender email service. The integration is seamless with cloud-based email servers such as Microsoft 365, Exchange Online, or Gmail. License calculation is based on the count of active mailboxes, excluding aliases and distribution lists. Administrators are advised to use the native integration with Active Directory (both on-premises and cloud) for automated mailbox synchronization.
Bitdefender Security for Email leverages the strength of Bitdefender sandbox, antimalware, and Antispam services. Email analysis involves over 134 variables extracted from each email message, providing complete control over mail flow, and supporting multiple email providers. One remarkable feature of Bitdefender is the strong emphasis on security. The Cloud sandbox is automatically provided as a default feature, free of charge, to all Security for Email customers. Any messages containing attachments (see supported file types) will have their files sent to the sandbox for scanning.
One of the key functionalities is LinkScan which revolutionizes email security by rewriting URLs in email messages and offering comprehensive point-of-click protection through the utilization of multiple reputation services. With LinkScan, administrators have a range of powerful options at their disposal, including auto-redirect, click continue, block on the threat, and the ability to show/hide the target URL. Furthermore, LinkScan provides the flexibility to scan links both at the time of message delivery and now of click, ensuring robust protection throughout the entire email lifecycle.
To safeguard against impersonation attacks and CEO fraud, our system performs a thorough analysis by comparing the sender's domain with legitimate domain names. By doing so, we identify any nearby domains that differ from the actual domain name by only one or two characters. This powerful feature adds an extra layer of protection, ensuring that potential threats originating from closely related domains are detected and mitigated effectively. Rest assured, our system is designed to proactively defend against impersonation attacks and CEO fraud, safeguarding your organization's security and reputation.
From Anti-spam perspective administrators have at their disposal multiple engines, including Bitdefender engines, which use a combination of technologies to detect spam as well as more sophisticated targeted phishing and impersonation attacks. Additionally, Security for email provides multiple signature and behaviour-based antivirus engines including Bitdefender.
Further elaboration on the antispam functionality is provided below in the section Bitdefender Antispam Service, where detailed information about its usage and implementation is described. The same engine is utilized for both Email and Exchange protection, ensuring consistent and reliable security measures.
The quarantine portal grants users access to their quarantined items, while administrators have access to vital reporting modules such as real-time visibility and top trends. Additionally, administrators can utilize a detailed view for daily administration, enabling analysis of individual messages with precise reasons for email delivery or rejection. This includes access to email headers and the complete conversation with the remote email server.
Additionally, GravityZone Security for Email offers a SecureEmail feature, that provides a simple user-based encryption solution. It is valuable for transmitting sensitive messages that must not be stored in the recipient's inbox, as a conventional email would typically be. Upon sending the email, its contents will be converted and stored on a secure server. The recipient will then receive an email containing a link to the secure server along with login instructions. Subsequently, they can access the email's contents after logging in.
Detailed information about Email Security configurations can be found at our Bitdefender Support Center here.
The Bitdefender Antispam service utilizes a combination of antispam filtering and predictive technologies to efficiently detect spam messages in various languages, minimizing false positives, and providing protection against phishing attacks and malicious links in email attachments. The engine is utilized for both Email and Exchange protection, and it is also integrated into OEM technology solution. As a leading global technology provider, Bitdefender's Antispam services are widely adopted by numerous security vendors worldwide.
In independent tests, such as Virus Bulletin, Bitdefender achieved an exceptional spam detection rate of over 99.9%, with zero false positives, earning Virus Bulletin's highest certification, VBSpam+.
The IP Reputation system ensures the proactive detection of spam emails by analyzing the sender's IP address.
Domain and URL Reputation involves extracting the URLs from the message and cross-referencing them with a real-time blacklist to assess their reputation.
Fingerprinting, by employing cryptographic hashes, the system scans the email structure, headers, and body content to efficiently detect spam content.
Malicious attachment detection serves as a crucial layer in identifying messages containing malware and phishing attachments.
Cryptocurrency address blacklists to target extortion scams and detects multiple obfuscated cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
Spam image detection enhances detection accuracy.
Email address blacklists to filter out known spamming email addresses.
Phone number filter to block dating, scam & fraud campaigns.
Proactive heuristic detection technology combines intricate spam message patterns, advanced heuristic filters, and content analysis methods.
Spear phishing detection based on FROM and Reply-to header content filtering.
Email Classification is achieved through our detection types and machine learning classification models, enabling us to categorize emails accurately based on categories like phishing, malware, scam extortion and marketing.
To learn more about the technologies behind the Protection layer, we recommend reading the next article Network Protection.
GravityZone Security for Email official website: GravityZone Security for Email - Complete Email Protection (bitdefender.com)
GravityZone Security for Exchange Servers official website: Bitdefender GravityZone Security for Exchange
GravityZone Security for Email Guided Tour: Security for Email Guided Tour
GravityZone Security for Exchange Servers Guided Tour: Security for Exchange Servers Guided Tour