Summary
With more and more clients migrating to fully managed cloud solutions, the incremental threat of ransomware and phishing on their client base was a growing concern for National IT. After undertaking a thorough search for a comprehensive solution, National IT found the award-winning anti-ransomware and anti-phishing solution, Avanan.
When going ‘phishing’ takes on a whole new meaning
Victorian based Managed Service Provider (MSP) National IT Solutions has been working with small and medium businesses (SMEs) for 20 years. The founders maintain that the impetus behind the company’s launch, two decades ago, was the frustration in the IT service and support being offered to small business compared to the big end of town.
National IT’s three big drivers were and continue to be technical expertise, consistent service and accountability in managed IT services for SMEs.
“We work closely with them to find the ideal technology solutions and truly enhance business operations – all the while monitoring their set-up and ensuring day-to-day disruptions are minimised,” says Paul Maranzano, National IT Solutions’ Technical Director
The big move to the cloud
Having assisted their clients to migrate from inhouse servers to fully managed cloud solutions over the last decade, the incremental impact and threat of ransomware and phishing on their client base has been upper most in the mind of Maranzano and his team over the last couple of years.
As opposed to the more traditional spam and virus attacks to date, phishing and ransomware attacks are thoroughly researched and targeted.
“The massive increase in impersonation and phishing in our client base, irrespective of the industry they’re in, has well and truly hit home with regards to our clients. And, ironically, often the bigger the company, the easier it is to fool the various targeted departments using CEO fraud scams,” said Paul.
‘But what you don’t want is a security system where controls are successful in blocking the malicious actor, but also impact legitimate users’ ability to access their data and networks.”
A phishing frenzy!
With the global move to remote work over the last two years, Microsoft 365 has been identified as a rich and compelling target. Particularly for attackers employing new tactics such as consent phishing and evasion techniques to avoid detection and inspection by targeted businesses and security researchers.
2024 has seen these fraudsters’ activity move up a notch, or two, or three.
They’re becoming more creative with the names and addresses of their phishing sites. This includes creating ever more realistic website addresses, with vulnerable websites providing the opportunity for fraudsters to host their phishing pages on a reputable URL for free.
“And fraudsters know that the way to make a quick buck isn’t to spend months attempting to breach an organisation’s security, it’s simply to ask nicely for the username and password so they can walk right in through the front door,” said Paul.
National IT had been highlighting these growing threats to its client base – focusing on security controls and user training – emphasising that cloud security is a different beast to on-premises security. Education focused on the reality that malware is not stopped by normal filtering systems and is not just focused on the big end of town. There was also a growing awareness of these cyberattacks and the associated risks through the global media reporting of these growing attacks.
Client questions probing what defences National IT was delivering increased exponentially in late 2020.
Growing cloud threats prompted National IT to seek out an anti-ransomware and anti-phishing solution.
Catching those connected cloud threats
The growth in CEO fraud (a form of spearphishing attack targeting members of the company’s finance or accounting team) is closely being followed by some creative whaling type attacks where cyber criminals target senior management. Both phishing types seek to convince email recipients into quickly executing unauthorised money/pay/invoice transfers, or providing personal information where the money is transferred to an account under the control of cybercriminals.
National IT undertook research on the most effective security solution for cloud email and collaboration as a growing number of clients understood that they needed to put another security layer into their systems. And when one of its largest clients – a civil construction organisation with 450 users who had experienced phishing threats in the form of CFO/CEO email impersonations – requested National IT find a comprehensive anti-ransomware and anti-phishing solution. Their search paid off when they identified Avanan’s award-winning technology.
The technology connects to an organisation’s environment, scans for threats beyond existing security but (crucially) before reaching the inbox.
Avanan is really world leading in that it can fully secure an organisation’s cloud email and collaboration platforms due to its unique architecture built specifically for the cloud
During the 14-day Avanan trial, the solution identified and stopped 273 impersonation attempts
“Deployment followed shortly after!” said Paul. ‘It was more of ‘Just do it now‘ rather than ‘What do you think?‘”
The organisation has had no issues since deployment of the Avanan technology, considering that it is a valuable investment in financial, legal and reputational risk mitigation.
The National IT team like the fact that Avanan approaches its technology with an MSP focus to make deployment rapid and seamless.
“We are the ones at the receiving end of client issues and every client has a unique system servicing their organisational communications needs. We love the fact that Avanan’s unique phishing filter covers multiple platforms allowing us to protect all of them.”
An award-winning anti-ransomware and anti-phishing solution designed for MSPs
Today, the majority of National IT’s clients have the Avanan malware technology deployed in their organisation. With limited fine-tuning such as Hotmail email addresses being identified as legitimate versus impersonators and identifying legitimate invoicing-related emails.
Paul describes it as a set and forget service. There’s no heavy configuration and no need for replication. “At the end of the day, these are cleverly designed impersonation emails and all you need is one slip-up to destroy your business.”
Besides providing an effective anti-phishing platform, an important consideration for MSPs is the fact that Avanan technology also delivers detailed reporting of threats and weaknesses in the configuration of an organisation’s Microsoft 365 platform. The technology can deep dive into the mailboxes of an organisation’s customers’ tenants and ‘search and destroy’ emails after they have been delivered to the users, often before they open them!
“The trial, deployment, ongoing monitoring, and importantly, backend billing has been and continues to be painless,” concluded Paul, “and we have a growing number of clients arm themselves against cyber attacks with Avanan.”
Learn more about the anti-ransomware and anti-phishing solution, Avanan.
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