Why email filtering is still important in 2024!
Ok, so it’s time to get on a soap box for a moment about email filtering and how important it is in 2024.
I wrote something a few months ago on LinkedIn about how AI (artificial intelligence) is shaping spear phishing and email spam. More or less, my point is that:
1.) You cannot just rely on the old, broken English emails from the spammers and scammers any more to be the first sign that the message you have received is garbage.
2.) You must now assume that not only individuals, but nation state bad actors, including their proxies, and criminal organizations, are coming after your data and your money.
3.) Those nation states and bad actors are using AI to write very well crafted emails to fool you. Yes, the robot is now doing the dirty work using correct English syntax and grammar. Who needs a translator anymore with decent copy writing skills when you can use ChatGPT or other AI resource to write a scamming message?
4.) I had an AI robot write a good part of my posting to LinkedIn just to prove the point that AI, with just a bit of prompting, can do what is needed to craft a well written document. It’s not hard to use AI folks, and many times, it is free.
The solution for spam has always been good email filtering with business impersonation and phishing/spear phishing technology built in so bad guys cannot impersonate your people. Now, those good spam filtering solutions are also AI based, so the good guys use AI to detect patterns and test out the bad links that a scammer may have put into a spam or phishing email to catch you. Finally! Something for the good guys in all of this spamming mess.
But too many times do I still see some of our SMB and education clients not wanting to pay for spam filtering solutions. They assume that Office 365 or Google Workspace mail will save them. Yes, those solutions have good detection, but it be blunt, it is not enough.
Solvonex builds defense in layers. Think of security like an onion with each layer wrapped around the core, which in this case, is your business. We employ additive email filtering solutions into Office 365 and Google Workspace to achieve a deeper inspection and testing of wording, links, and other pieces in the email to see if what you have received is trustworthy. Is it 100% effective all the time? No, that is impossible no matter what anybody tells you.
Take our email filtering stance with our multiple layers of web filtering, antimalware solutions, next generation firewall technologies, AND end user security training, and now you have a great solution to begin defending against not only the old school ways of scammers sending you spam and phishing, but you have a hope against the AI based written spam.
We strongly encourage everyone to adopt a layered onion approach to their cybersecurity using products that are not only flexible but well supported by consulting firms like Solvonex. Nothing is foolproof or 100% secure. We guarantee that is a fact, but we also guarantee doing nothing or almost nothing and accepting the basic security settings available in anything will eventually catch up to you. When Solvonex or your IT Department says they need more cybersecurity tools to protect your users, you should perhaps listen. Pretty soon, your cyberliablity insurance will ask what tools you have in place to protect your users, and your premiums or ability to even get cyberliability insurance will depend on your answers.
Have questions? Contact us on how we can help you out. Yes, we want to sell you a solution as that is why were in business (to make money…duh!), but we also want to stop the proliferation of bad actors stealing from your grandmother, your company, your church, and your kids. Protect yourself, and learn about spammer, scammers, and phishing attempts.
Here are a few YouTubers and others we trust to tell you all about scams on the Internet:
