At a glance
Recognizing gaps in their Microsoft 365 email security, Shields Health Solutions (Shields) wanted to implement an integrated cloud email security solution to eliminate email-based threats that could put patient data at risk.
Shields now leverages Egress’ Intelligent Email Security platform to detect and neutralize sophisticated inbound attacks, prevent misdirected emails and attachments, and ensure the appropriate security is applied to sensitive communications.
The need to protect patient privacy in a remote environment
As a leading pharmaceutical organization, it is crucial for Shields Health Solutions (Shields) to guarantee the safety and confidentiality of sensitive patient data on email.
With most Shields employees working remotely, Rob Fountaine, Principal Security Engineer at Shields, explains: “Email is an essential but ultimately dangerous tool we use every day. Whether it’s interacting with targeted phishing emails like business email compromise, sending sensitive information to a personal email address or not applying the right security – any mistake puts our sensitive data at risk.”
Observing the limited detection capabilities of secure email gateways (SEG) and the overlap in functionality offered by Microsoft 365’s native security controls, Rob concludes: “We wanted a single solution to plug the gaps in Microsoft 365 and defend against the entire range of advanced inbound and outbound threats over email. In addition, we wanted the solution to provide in-the-moment prompts to enhance employee’s security awareness without disrupting workflow.”
Egress intelligently eliminates the full spectrum of email-based threats
Following a successful pilot, Shields implemented the full Egress Intelligent Email Security platform across all 2,000 users to address the security limitations they recognized in their native security solution. Comprised of Egress Defend, Egress Prevent, and Egress Protect, the platform seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365, utilizing AI models and an adaptive security architecture to detect and respond to threats, as well as providing real-time nudges to alert users before security incidents can occur.
Defend leverages pre-generative and zero-trust models, as well as linguistic, contextual, and behavioral analysis to detect sophisticated phishing attacks such business email compromise. On the outbound, Prevent and Protect combine contextual machine learning, intelligent DLP and encryption to ensure emails are sent to the correct recipients, containing the right information, and are appropriately protected relative to the level of risk.
“The Defend banners have been game-changing,” explains Rob. “Not only are users stopping to pay attention to the banners and understand the threat, but since we incorporated them into our phishing simulation campaigns, we have seen a dramatic decrease in click rate. In addition, the Prevent prompts allow users to make an educated decision when sending an email, and I know that every single time a user accepts advice, we may have just avoided a serious data loss incident.”
“With Egress Prevent in place, I know that every single time a user accepts advice, we may have just avoided a serious data loss incident.”
Rob Fountaine, Principal Security Engineer, Shields
Defend detects 1491 more attacks than Microsoft 365
In a 90-day period, 1491 phishing emails bypassed Microsoft 365 and were identified and neutralized by Defend, with 743 attacks that evaded native security coming from compromised accounts. In the same period, Prevent stopped 82 potential data loss incidents.
“If you are using Microsoft 365, it makes perfect sense to move towards a best-of-breed solution like Egress that can eliminate the full spectrum of inbound and outbound threats over email.” says Rob. “Another thing we like about utilizing an ICES over a traditional SEG vendor is that we didn’t have to alter our MX record, meaning there are less publicly available indicators for threat actors to exploit.”
Rob and the Security team at Shields were particularly impressed with the Egress’ remediation capabilities. “With Defend, the dashboard gives us a holistic view of the types of threats targeting our organization which we can then use to tailor our internal phishing campaigns. Conversely, Prevent and Protect analytics give us granular insights into what type of advice is being accepted to continually assess email security policies.”
Rob concludes: “We were looking for a new solution that went above and beyond the SEG – and that’s exactly what Egress has given us. Egress has optimized every aspect of our email security, from detection and remediation to security awareness training.”