Protecting Email with AI Against Targeted Attacks

Email is still the main channel for business communication, and it is also the favourite way in for anyone attacking a company. Spam, viruses and known threats are now caught by basic filters. So cybercriminals have changed tactics: fewer mass attacks, more tailor-made messages that exploit people’s trust.

This article looks at what these attacks look like, why traditional controls are not enough, and how the AI built into EagleMercury Exchange email helps stop them before they reach your colleagues’ inboxes.

The new face of email attacks

“Click-and-run” attacks such as spam and mass phishing still exist, but they are easy to spot and traditional systems stop them. The biggest risk today comes from targeted attacks, often grouped under Business Email Compromise (BEC): frauds in which someone poses as a trusted colleague or supplier to obtain money or data. According to several industry reports, the total losses caused by these frauds are now enormous.

Targeted attacks usually share these traits:

• They are carefully prepared. The attacker knows the victim’s name, role, manager and sometimes even the days they are out of the office.
• They often contain nothing technically “malicious”. The first message rarely includes a dangerous link or attachment: the apparently legitimate request is the real payload. Any link or file comes later, once trust has been won.
• They slip past rules and metadata. Rules that are too strict produce a flood of false positives; rules that are too loose let the most refined messages through.
• They play on psychology. Urgency, authority, fear: the wording is designed to make the reader act on impulse, without stopping to think.

The problem with the quick click

We live in an age of quick gestures: we read, reply and click within seconds. In cybersecurity, that habit can be costly. One click on a phishing link or one infected attachment is enough for malware, ransomware or other harmful code to get into the company network.

Several studies indicate that the vast majority of data breaches involve human error, and that a significant share of employees click on phishing emails even after training. That is not a failing: today’s attacks are built to look authentic.

The conclusion is simple. You cannot rely on people’s vigilance alone. You need a solution that analyses every message and spots anomalies even when the threat has never been seen before.

How EagleMercury protects you

EagleMercury Exchange email includes advanced threat protection: several security engines plus artificial intelligence block over 99% of spam and phishing, with very few false positives. The most advanced layer is Email Protection Premium, which brings together three tools.

AI Guardian

AI Guardian uses artificial intelligence to recognise the attacks that traditional filters let through: invoice and payment fraud, impersonation of executives and suppliers, targeted phishing and ransomware. It does not just look for known signatures: it weighs the context of the message, meaning who is writing, how they normally behave and what they are asking for. Threats it detects are handled automatically according to predefined actions.

LinkSafe

LinkSafe checks links at the moment of the click, not only when the message arrives. If an address that looked harmless later turns out to be a known phishing site, access is blocked. That is valuable protection against exactly the distracted click described above.

Data loss prevention (DLP)

Email security is also about what goes out. DLP detects personal and payment data in outgoing emails and, depending on the rules you set, quarantines them, encrypts them or alerts the administrator. It is a practical help in avoiding accidental disclosure of sensitive information, including with GDPR in mind.

Flexible rules and attachment filtering

You can define different security policies for the whole company, for groups or for individual users. Attachments in outgoing messages are checked by a dedicated filter.

What to do in practice

Technology works best alongside good habits:

• Verify unusual requests for payments or changes of bank details by phoning a number you already know, not by replying to the same email.
• Be wary of urgency. A message that rushes you and asks for secrecy deserves a second look.
• Report suspicious messages to your administrator rather than just deleting them.
• Review security rules when roles, departments or suppliers change.
• Do not rely on training alone. It helps, but it only really works together with automatic protection.

Which plan to choose

EagleMercury Exchange email comes in three plans, with a monthly fee per user and no infrastructure costs:

Plan	Who it is for
Collabora	Complete business email, with spam and virus protection
Collabora Pro	Adds advanced AI protection
Collabora Enterprise	Adds legal archiving of all emails

Not sure which fits? We can help you choose the right plan and support the migration from your current email.

In short

• Email attacks are increasingly targeted and rely on trust, not obvious viruses.
• Static rules and training alone are not enough against a hasty click.
• AI Guardian, LinkSafe and DLP protect incoming and outgoing email, with automatic actions and tailored rules.

Want to understand what level of protection your company needs? Contact us and we will come back with a concrete proposal.