Mimecast, a leading email and data security company has introduced the latest capability of its targeted threat protection service, Internal Email Protect, the first-to-market cloud-based security service providing threat capabilities for internally generated email.

 Internal Email Protect allows customers to detect and remediate security threats that originate from their users’ email accounts. This capability includes the scanning of attachments and URLs, as well as content inspections via DLP services. Additionally, Internal Email Protect includes the ability to automatically extract infected email or attachments from users’ inboxes.

Mimecast Internal Email Protect is an add-on to the award winning Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection family of email security offerings which includes URL protect, Attachment Protect and Impersonation Protect.

Mimecast commissioned from Forrester Consulting indicates that organizations need to move beyond basic email security capabilities. The research evaluated the state of enterprise understanding of insider security threats by surveying 253 Security and Risk Management experts from the US, UK, South Africa, and Australia.

The results were compiled in a Forrester Technology Adoption Profile study which found that 99 per cent of organizations surveyed had experienced some form of insider security incident in the past 24 months.

The newly launched Internal Email Protect service can address these threats by enabling customers to detect and remediate security threats that originate from their internal email system. This could include emails from the unassuming compromised insider, the careless employee inadvertently sending files and/or a malicious employee who wants to do harm to the company.

According to the Forrester Technology Adoption Profile study, compromised accounts can cause the biggest headache, as three quarters of respondents described the financial impact of compromised accounts as moderate or significant, and 68 per cent said they led to a moderate or significant productivity loss.

Internal Email Protect gives organizations the visibility they need to help reduce downtime and data and financial loss by detecting and remediating internally generated email-borne threats. Key benefits of Internal Email Protect include:

•    Broader, more comprehensive protection from targeted threats: single cloud solution to inspect email coming into, going out from and staying within an organization.
•    Detection of lateral movement of attacks from one internal system or user, to another.
•    Identification of threats, or sensitive data leaving an organization, which could result in reputational damage.

Email from internal users can also be used to send threats laterally across an organization– through the distribution of malware, malicious URLs or impersonation emails. In fact, the recent Forrester Technology Adoption Profile study cited that within the last 24 months:

•    40 per cent of respondents experienced business compromise/impersonation attacks;
•    36 per cent experienced insider emailing sensitive data; and
•    44 per cent experienced phishing attacks all due to internal threats.

“Not all threats are created equal; therefore, organizations need a cyber-resilience strategy to help organizations prepare for any type of attack – whether that be from outside or inside of the organization, malicious or accidental,” said Neil Murray, chief technology officer at Mimecast.

“Internal Email Protect is the only cloud-based email security service addressing internal-to-internal emails for malware, malicious URLs and the improper movement of sensitive content. With Internal Email Protect, organizations can get ahead of the attack and stop feeling like they’re playing a never ending game of catch-up.” – TradeArabia News Service