How We Boost the Security of Office 365 by Blocking 3.4 Million High-Risk Email Threats

Email is the No. 1 threat vector. Ninety-four percent of ransomware in 2017 used email to spread. Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, including CEO fraud, jumped a whopping 106 percent from the first half of 2017 to the second. In the meantime, businesses are moving their email systems to the cloud rapidly. Microsoft Office 365 now has 120 million business users. The successful adoption of Office 365 also means that more email threats are threatening cloud users.

Trend Micro™ Cloud App Security™ (CAS) is an API-based service protecting the Microsoft® Office 365™ Exchange™ Online, OneDrive® for Business, and SharePoint® Online platforms. Using multiple advanced threat protection techniques, it acts as a second layer of protection after email and files have passed through Office 365 scanning.

In 2017, Trend Micro Cloud App Security was able to detect and block 3.4 million high-risk email threats missed by Office 365 security. Those threats include 260,000 unknown malware, 50,000 ransomware, and 3,000 Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.

Trend Micro Cloud App Security customers usually see immediate result after implementing the solution. For Live Nation, deploying Trend Micro Cloud App Security “reduced the malware infections that the Incident Response Team needed to respond to by 90 percent.” University College Cork hasn’t been caught with ransomware since CAS was implemented. Walki Group’s security report shows that CAS catches several threats, including ransomware, every week.

Trend Micro CAS can also help customers who have Office 365 E5 plan, which includes Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection. A global transportation and logistics company in Europe with more than 25,000 email users on E5 plan were under frequent ransomware attacks. The customer used Trend Micro Cloud App Security for a manual scan of 3 days email and OneDrive data, and found 3,000 advanced phishing, 28 ransomware and one BEC attack in email. Four ransomware files were also identified in OneDrive.

Check out the Trend Micro Cloud App Security 2017 Report to get more details on the type of threats blocked by CAS and common email attacks analyzed by Trend Labs in 2017.