Recommendations include using AI-based email security solutions that can detect communication patterns and conversational-style anomalies.

Abnormal Security, the leading behavioral AI-based security platform, announced that it has been recognized as a representative vendor in the Integrated Cloud Email Security category in the 2023 Gartner Market Guide for Email Security. Vendors are selected based on innovative and/or demonstrative capabilities, forward-looking product strategies, customer usage and the interest of Gartner clients. The vendors listed in the Market Guide do not imply an exhaustive list. The report is intended to provide more understanding of the market and its offerings.

“Use email security solutions that include anti-phishing technology for targeted BEC protection that use AI to detect communication patterns and conversation-style anomalies.”

According to the recently released Gartner report, “Impersonation and account takeover attacks via business email compromise (BEC) are increasing and causing direct financial loss, as users place too much trust in the identities associated with email, which is inherently vulnerable to deception and social engineering.” The latest Internet Crime Report from the FBI attributes $2.1 billion in direct losses to business email compromise in 2021 alone, and recent research from Abnormal shows that end users correctly identify and report only 2.1% of all BEC attacks that reach their inboxes. This underscores the need for email security solutions that can stop attacks before they reach end users.

Perhaps more worrisome is how attackers are shifting to other applications. The Gartner Market Guide for Email Security states, “With the shift to remote and hybrid working, communication is moving beyond just email to include collaboration tools such as LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, Slack etc., with users outside the organization. Attackers can potentially use these for phishing and malware distribution. Although email is still the most common attack vector, many attackers use emails to begin the communication and then move it to Slack, Teams or any other collaboration platforms.”

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Recognizing the rise in advanced socially-engineered attacks and the continued adoption of cloud-based email systems like Microsoft 365, Gartner recommends that organizations “Use email security solutions that include anti-phishing technology for targeted BEC protection that use AI to detect communication patterns and conversation-style anomalies.” AI technology can be leveraged to help security teams detect communication patterns and conversational anomalies to stop the full spectrum of sophisticated attacks. Further, using an API-based approach offers the opportunity to extend behavioral AI in order to filter malicious content or suspicious interactions across multiple communications channels to prevent attacks.

Abnormal Security is recognized in the Gartner Market Guide for Email Security as a Representative Vendor for Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES). In addition to the more advanced detection techniques, the Market Guide states, “ICES solutions also provide account takeover protection which analyzes user behaviors and various other factors such as login behavior, locations, authentication methods, etc. They detect and alert which account has been compromised and take remediation actions if required.” In addition to these capabilities, Abnormal further allows for built-in classification mailboxes that remove the need for complex policy management of graymail and ultimately increase end-user productivity.

“Inbound email attacks like phishing and business email compromise continue to be a massive problem because they evade traditional security solutions, leading to significant financial losses. And in the modern world, cloud email and cloud-based collaboration platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other business applications are interconnected, significantly increasing the attack surface area,” said Evan Reiser, CEO and co-founder of Abnormal Security. “To precisely detect anomalies and prevent these attacks, the Abnormal platform understands the behavior of every identity, creates enhanced context and calculates the risk of each event with high accuracy. We are honored to be recognized in the 2023 Gartner Market Guide for Email Security, and we are proud to provide superior attack protection for organizations of all sizes, including more than 10% of the Fortune 500.”

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