Request a Demo of Tessian Today.

Automatically stop data breaches and security threats caused by employees on email. Powered by machine learning, Tessian detects anomalies in real-time, integrating seamlessly with your email environment within minutes and starting protection in a day. Provides you with unparalleled visibility into human security risks to remediate threats and ensure compliance.

Prepare for the next wave of email attacks at Fwd: Thinking on Nov 2 | Save Your Seat →

Integrated Cloud Email Security
Q&A: Tim Sadler, Tessian CEO
Thursday, July 4th, 2019
Tim Sadler, Tessian CEO and co-founder, summarizes his journey from founding Tessian to raising $60m from leading investors. Why did you decide to found Tessian, and why was email security the problem you focused on? Tessian was founded in 2013 by myself, Ed Bishop and Tom Adams. We all studied engineering together at university before moving into banking. Working at these multinational organizations, we saw how much sensitive data was put at risk by people sending emails. Modern organizations process vast amounts of information, and they have a lot of controls to keep that data safe. But even with NDAs, project code names, and policies advocating security best practices, enterprises still face risks from many, many misdirected emails. Today, organizations have to allocate budget to keeping their data safe, and they understand the importance of reputation management. So we asked ourselves, ‘Why is this a problem?’ We realized that there had to be a technological solution that could help improve email security within complex organizations. When we started the company we didn’t really have security backgrounds, but we did have the first-hand knowledge of how big a problem this was. When we got in front of our first customers – predominantly law firms and banks – and started talking about the threat of human error in email communication, that was when we knew Tessian had value to offer. So why is human error such a huge threat? Email is something we all do. We send 40 emails a day, and generally speaking it feels incredibly safe. It’s a little bit like our own personal safety: we don’t think twice about getting into a car or driving a car, but statistically speaking it’s actually one of the most dangerous things that you can do in your life. We’re scared by the headline-grabbing stuff, like plane crashes or shark attacks, but it’s actually the unremarkable things we do every day without thinking that are most likely to cause harm. That’s exactly the problem with email, and in particular with misdirected emails. That why the first piece of software we built was targeted at helping enterprises automatically deal with the risk of misdirected email communications. How important is it that security products don’t disrupt people’s work? It became clear to us when we were building Tessian that employees wanted a completely automated process. Security leaders understand the risk of misdirected emails and know that a technological solution is needed. However, they want to deploy technology that doesn’t require laborious maintenance or pre-configuration. It has to work ‘as if by magic’. Preserving the user experience is essential. It was imperative that the technology wouldn’t get in the way of people doing their jobs: no-one wants a pop-up asking them to confirm the validity of every single email they send. Organizations wanted something that just completely blended in with regular workflows. These were some of the key learnings we got from those early meetings. We’ve worked hard to create something that doesn’t need an enormous IT team to implement. Tessian’s products are completely automated, and the deployment is seamless: it simply integrates with existing infrastructure. So what are the different problems Tessian solves today? Cybersecurity previously focused on computer networks before moving on to endpoints, or device-level security. In the world we’re in today, we believe that the next step is to protect people. This progress is reflected in our development of different email filters. We don’t solely focus on preventing misdirected emails with our Guardian filter any more. We also focus on other areas of security. Tessian Enforcer prevents unauthorized emails, which is where people send highly sensitive information to (for example) personal Gmail or Hotmail accounts. Our most recent launch is Tessian Defender, which focuses on preventing inbound spear phishing emails. This is a defense against malicious outsiders trying to trick humans within your enterprise, whether it’s encouraging them to click on a suspect link or to make an erroneous payment. This is why we need a security platform covering the whole human layer. Tessian’s mission (and it’s an ambitious one) is to protect firms against any security threat executed by a human. To get closer to fulfilling that mission, we’re investing in R&D and software engineering. We continue to work on new solutions that address all organizations’ human layer risks. We are constantly working on innovative ways to deal with security risks that don’t require hiring an additional 10 people to run the software or conduct analysis. This is something that we focus on very heavily at Tessian – to offer software that can be deployed simply and quickly to automatically prevent security risks to people. Tessian’s Human Layer Security platform is unique in the market. Why do you think you’re the only company offering this solution? It seems obvious, doesn’t it, to focus on Human Layer Security as the solution to the problems we’ve discussed. The issue is that these problems are incredibly difficult to solve in a manner that provides best-in-class user experience and is completely automated. That’s why machine learning lies at the core of our technology. The products and the underlying tech takes time to get right, and I think that’s why we’re out there alone at the moment. The challenges we’ve had to work to overcome require intense and rapid analysis of historical data in order to understand conventional communication patterns and behaviors. We have a very short window of time to check an email and make a conclusion about whether it’s going to be OK to send or reply to. Developing that software has taken time and R&D investment. Another benefit to Tessian – and our clients – is that we’re a relatively young company, so we’ve been able to build the entire system on very modern architecture. This has allowed us to leverage increased speed in the system and an abundance of flexible computing power. In this respect we think we’re ahead of any other company in our space. We are on a mission to bring Human Layer Security to as many enterprises around the world as possible. We want to keep the world’s most sensitive information and systems private and secure, building technology that allows enterprises to do that by delivering amazing experience both for security teams and also the people that directly interact with the product. What do you think Tessian will look like in a few years’ time? I’m currently speaking from our New York office, which we established in 2018. We’re now investing heavily in the US market, and to help us do that we raised $42 million worth of funding in a round earlier this year led by Sequoia Capital. Sequoia invests in the best security technology companies in the world. We raised the capital to move into new markets as well as significantly expand our R&D activities. Our goal at Tessian is to protect the human layer in the same way that firewalls protect the network layer and endpoint security protects the device layer. We are focused on the automatic protection of any person processing data within the enterprise. In the future, I see Human Layer Security being a concept that is brought up at board level, exactly the same way that these other concepts in cybersecurity are discussed. Ultimately, humans make mistakes, they break the rules and they are easily deceived. These three problems are huge security vulnerabilities for people and organizations. It’s also much harder to protect people, but it’s also much more important that they are protected. Every organization has some kind of firewall protection against the network. They will have some kind of endpoint security protection on their devices. We see Human Layer Security really being the third piece of the jigsaw puzzle that’s currently missing from these organizations. Tessian wants to be the layer that protects the most important part of any enterprise – your people. *Interview condensed from Modern Law Magazine supplement, May 2019.
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security
Why Wednesday is Your Business’ Riskiest Day
Monday, June 24th, 2019
They call it the Hump Day for a reason; our latest research has revealed that workers feel the most tired on Wednesday afternoon and this could be putting your data and systems at risk. This is because when we are tired, we become more error-prone. In fact over three quarters of people (76%) we surveyed say that they make more mistakes when they are feeling sleepy. The problem is that is just takes one mistake – one email accidentally going to the wrong person or one click on a phishing scam – to compromise sensitive data and ruin a company’s reputation. No rest for the wicked Phishing is becoming a persistent hazard for businesses to deal with. The number of phishing attacks continue to rise year on year and today, around 6.4 billion fake emails are sent worldwide every day. Furthermore, Verizon revealed that a staggering 94% of malware is now delivered by email. Therefore, it’s never been more important for employees to spot the good from the bad to avoid falling for the scams. But given that 91% of UK workers told us they feel tired during the working week, with one in five feeling tired every day, can we really expect employees to make the right decision 100% of the time when faced with a cybersecurity threat on email? The thing is, when we are tired and stressed, we may overlook cues present in a cyber threat. This is according to cyber-psychologists Dr Helen Jones and Prof. John Towse who recently shared their insight in our latest report – Why Do People Make Mistakes. Tiredness affects our ability to question the legitimacy of messages and makes us more likely to miss something that signals a threat, simply because we have less cognitive capacity available to dedicate to evaluating new information. Tired employees also pose another risk; fatigue makes it harder for people to resist the impulsive urge to respond to a persuasive request in a potentially malicious email. A study by Washington State University, for example, found that sleep deprivation not only increases the likelihood of someone making risky decisions but also decreases a person’s awareness about why they were taking risks. With email being so quick and easy to use, tired employees may not even register the risk their inbox could pose. What’s more, it’s not hard to imagine that a smart hacker could even start to target your most tired employees at certain times of the day in a bid to trick them to click. Waking up to the threat We cannot expect people to make the right cybersecurity decisions 100% of the time; tiredness and overwhelming workloads lead to risky decisions on email and this poses a threat to your business. Rather than seeing employees as the first line of defence, you instead need to consider how to use technology to limit the number of costly mistakes that are just waiting to happen. By alerting employees to potential threats and advising them on the action to take, you can mitigate the risk and encourage people to think before they hit ‘send’ – especially during that Wednesday afternoon slump.
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security
Tired and Overworked Employees Pose a Huge Risk to Business’ Data
Wednesday, June 12th, 2019
New Tessian report reveals that working environments stop people making safe cybersecurity decisions at work. Today’s working environments are making it impossible for employees to make the right decision 100% of the time when faced with a potential cyber threat on email, reveals a new report from cybersecurity company Tessian. The report – Why Do People Make Mistakes? – presents findings from a new survey, conducted by Tessian, in which 1,000 UK employees were asked about their working environment and practices. Additionally, the report includes insights from cyber-psychologists Dr Helen Jones, University of Central Lancashire and Professor John Towse, Lancaster University, which further explains how certain factors in the workplace can cause people to make suboptimal decisions, leading to dangerous behaviour on email. The research reveals how overwhelming workloads, office distractions, fatigue and stress affect a person’s cognitive capacity, potentially impairing an employee’s ability to identify signs of a potential cyber threat – such as a phishing scam or sending an email to the wrong address. This, Tessian argues, puts businesses’ data and systems at risk given that 52% of UK employees say they’ve accidentally sent a work email to the wrong person. Tim Sadler, CEO at Tessian said, “Every time someone sends or receives an email, they are making a decision. When you consider how much time we spend on email, it’s little wonder that sometimes those decisions result in mistakes. However, it takes just one mistake – one email being sent to the wrong person or falling for one convincing message – to compromise your company’s data and ruin its reputation. Businesses, therefore, need to consider how they can protect their employees on email.” The factors that affect people’s ability to make the right cybersecurity decisions at work include: 1. Quick-to-click cultures Over half of UK employees (58%) say there is an expectation within their organisation to respond to emails quickly. Dependency on mobile phones isn’t helping the situation; nearly six in ten (59%) respondents say they use their mobile phones to send work emails out of office hours, with nearly a third doing so at least 2-3 times a week. Two in five respondents (39%) admit they respond to emails much more quickly on their phones. Dr Helen Jones said, “Studies have repeatedly shown that time pressures significantly impact decision accuracy. Under pressure, we are more likely to rely on impulsive, low-effort behavioural responses and dedicate less attention to the situation in front of us. What’s more, an increased pressure upon employees to be constantly connected on-the-go means there is a higher likelihood of distraction and, therefore, mistakes.” 2. Tired and stressed The majority of UK employees (92%) feel tired at work, with people feeling most tired on Wednesday afternoons. In addition, 91% say they feel stressed at work, with people feeling stressed, on average, half of the working week (2.4 days). Worryingly, over three quarters of respondents (76%) say they make more mistakes when they are tired, while 71% say they make more mistakes when stressed. “Tired and stressed employees pose a real risk to email security,” explains Jones. “When we are tired and stressed, we are less likely to question the legitimacy of messages and miss the cues that signal a threat. We are also much more impulsive when we are tired, making it harder to resist the urge to respond to a tempting or persuasive request in a phishing email.” 3. Information overload More than two in five UK employees (44%) describe their current workload as either ‘overwhelming’ or ‘heavy’. On top of a never-ending to-do list, employees are faced with many distractions, including: 1. Office noise (37%) 2. Colleagues ‘dropping by’ (34%) 3. Email notifications (30%) 4. Meetings (26%) 5. Notifications on their personal phones (20%) When juggling multiple tasks at once, employees will likely rely more on habitual behaviours rather than engaging in analytical thinking. This makes businesses more vulnerable to threats over email given that a person’s ability to focus is impaired. 4. Trickery and trust Hackers are becoming smarter in their approaches to phishing, often impersonating well-known brands or senior executives within an organisation. One in 10 respondents admitted to clicking on a phishing email at work. This figure was much higher in the financial services industry where nearly one in three (29%) respondents in this sector admitted to clicking on a phishing email. Sadler concludes, “Businesses cannot rely on employees being the first line of defence. Mistakes happen, especially when people are tired, stressed and overworked. Companies need to help people make conscious and safe cybersecurity decisions on email, putting a safety net in place to prevent the inevitable. Only then, can businesses protect their data and systems from human failure on email.”
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security, Email DLP
Tessian recognized as “2018 Market Leader” for Email and Data Protection
Thursday, April 4th, 2019
Tessian, a email security platform powered by machine learning algorithms, has been named a market leading product by leading cyber-security website Expert Insights. Tessian utilizes powerful technologies to help businesses protect their sensitive data. Tessian works within the inbox, learning communication habits so that it can identify security threats. This means that Tessian offers strong protection against phishing attacks, misdirected emails and data loss. Expert Insights, a B2B IT security review website, has named Tessian a ‘Market leader’ in this area. They state that Tessian gives businesses excellent protection against phishing. They recommend the service highly to businesses looking to protect themselves against misdirected emails and data loss. Misdirected emails are one of the biggest challenges facing businesses. Sensitive emails being sent to the wrong people can have damaging effects on companies. Services such as Tessian offer a unique solution to this problem. By getting to know an individual user’s communication habits, the product can tell when users have misdirected an email. The service will then alert the user and stop the email being sent. This also allows for strong phishing protection from within the inbox, as the service can tell when an email isn’t legitimate and automatically delete it. Tessian’s sophisticated features allow businesses to go beyond traditional email security methods and provide multi-layered protection against data loss. The risks of data loss for business will continue to grow and this product offers an intelligent solution. To learn more about Tessian, contact us here.
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security
Tessian Wins Best Cybersecurity Service at Prestigious Hedge Fund Awards
Friday, March 29th, 2019
Tessian was named the Best Cybersecurity Service at the HMF European Hedge Fund Services Awards, in light of our innovative work to secure the human layer and prevent data breaches in hedge funds. Hosted at the Natural History Museum, the spectacular awards ceremony celebrated hedge fund service providers that have demonstrated exceptional client service, innovative product development and strong and sustainable business growth over the past 12 months. Tessian was shortlisted along with six other cybersecurity comapnies that provide solutions to protect hedge funds from cyber attacks.
We were thrilled to be rewarded by the judges – a panel of leading hedge fund COOs, CFOs, GCs and CTOs – as the best-in-class cybersecurity solution for this industry. The award recognized how Tessian has fundamentally changed the way hedge funds approach cybersecurity – focusing on protecting the human layer, rather than just securing a company’s networks and devices. This is incredibly important because 86% of data breaches can be attributed to human error, whether that’s accidentally sending an email containing sensitive data to the wrong person or falling victim to a phishing attack. When you consider that 60% of the organizations hit with phishing attacks during Q4 of 2017 were financial institutions, the threat in this particular industry is not one to be ignored. By using machine learning to analyze historical email data – the leading indicator of human behavior in the enterprise – our technology can automatically understand relationships, context and communication patterns of people. By understanding normal communication, we can automatically identify and prevent email threats before they occur.  
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security
Human Error is Incredibly Difficult to Understand, Let Alone Predict
Monday, March 4th, 2019
Email still remains the main communication channel for enterprises. Despite its incredible efficiencies and economies of scale, email as a communication tool is reliant on human interaction and judgement. This makes human error particularly prevalent on email. One example of a mistake that can occur over email due to human error is an email being directed to the wrong person. A misdirected email might happen for any number of reasons, just a few of which include stress, alertness, being in a hurry or simply bad luck. For example, staff members at a major Australian bank mistakenly sent emails that contained data from over 10,000 customers to the wrong recipient due to an error that changed the email’s domain name. Over the past few years the workforce has become more mobile, meaning that more data now exits organizations’ premises and networks. Many employees manage their inbox on the move, replying to an urgent email after work while commuting or messaging international clients in the early hours of the morning. While this flexibility is advantageous for employees and businesses, different diligence levels outside working hours and on mobile devices raise the chance of a misdirected email being sent. Let’s take a small-scale example. Even for a small organization where each employee sends a moderate number of emails per day, Tessian data shows that the likelihood of a misdirected email leaving the organization in a given month is high. That risk increases dramatically with the size of an organization. No matter how many Secure Email Gateways and firewalls you employ, failing to address this risk could mean your organization’s data being compromised. Mistakes due to human error are not limited only to outbound email. Over the past few years, inbound attacks such as spear phishing have become more frequent and more sophisticated. For example, someone may receive an email from an attacker impersonating a supplier requesting a transfer for an outstanding payment. The degree of urgency included in the email and the fact that the attacker utilizes a legitimate relationship makes the likelihood of the recipient falling for the attack more likely. In order to stay vigilant in this changing environment, security officers and business leaders should focus on two simple questions: 1. What’s the most likely cause of data loss for our organization? 2. What’s the maximum damage that a human error could cause? This awareness can help security leaders gain a better understanding of the risks they need to manage on an ongoing basis. Ultimately, this awareness could help mitigate the likelihood of data loss, and associated consequences like financial penalties or reputational damage. Mistakes due to human error are inevitable, but the negative consequences are not. Tessian’s machine-intelligent email filters use machine learning to understand relationships and behaviors on email, identifying in real time when people are about to make a mistake – whether it’s entering the wrong reply-to address or potentially falling for a spear phishing attack. Thoughtful, intelligent notifications located within the email client stop the threat before it can cause damage to your organization. Take action against misdirected emails and spear phishing today.  
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security
Announcing our Partnership with Sequoia and a New Era of Cybersecurity
by Tim Sadler Wednesday, February 27th, 2019
I’m delighted to officially share with the world today that Tessian’s raised $42m in Series B funding led by Sequoia and partner Matt Miller is joining the board. I got to properly know Sequoia and Matt last year after a destiny-crafting introduction from the legendary CyLon. We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of interest from investors, but I try not to take meetings unless we’re actually fundraising. Sequoia was different. Instead of spending time talking about ARR and our metrics, Matt was interested in our vision, founding story, team and challenges. Sequoia call themselves company-builders, and that’s exactly how it felt from day one. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Matt to the Tessian board and to work with him to create a new category of enterprise cybersecurity. When Tom, Ed and I started Tessian in our apartment in 2013, we started with a grand vision but laser focus on trying to execute one thing extremely well—preventing sensitive data loss caused by human error. Over the past three years, we’ve been quietly expanding the capabilities of our machine learning engine to address other gaping holes in enterprise security. Today, we’re also delighted to share our vision with the world for the very first Human Layer Security platform for the enterprise. Enterprises have spent the past two decades protecting their networks with firewalls, their devices with endpoint security but have completely neglected the most important data processors of all—their people. The new capital raised in our Series B will allow us to leverage the technology we’ve applied to email security and expand this to provide automatic protection for the myriad platforms and applications in use everyday by people in global organizations. Of course, none of this would have been possible without our most important allies. First, I’d like to thank all of our customers for their incredible support and belief in us over the years. Cybersecurity, by definition, is a risk-averse industry. It’s been inspiring to see how many enterprises are willing to adopt new technology to solve their greatest problems. Second, and to whom we owe the greatest thanks—the employees of Tessian. It’s because of your brilliance, creativity and relentless grit that we’ve achieved what we have today. As I’m sure any founder will attest, fundraising is a necessary part of company building but not the ultimate goal. We now have a huge amount of work ahead as we execute against our plans for 2019—a year that’s shaping up to be our biggest yet.
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security, Advanced Email Threats
Why Rule-Based Approaches to Spear Phishing is Failing
Wednesday, September 19th, 2018
  Introducing Defender Business Email Compromise scams were responsible for over $5.3 billion in global losses from 2013 to 2017. According to the FBI, these types of attacks are also becoming more prolific, jumping 2,370% from 2015 to 2016 alone. Most enterprises have anti-spam and anti-phishing filters in place to protect their emails. Unfortunately, bad actors are outpacing these safeguards and are finding more intelligent ways to break through to their targets. This is where Tessian comes in. Since 2013, we have been developing machine intelligent technology to prevent threats that rule-based legacy gateways and platforms cannot. Tessian Defender is our latest advancement. Defender protects from threats executed by humans rather than just code, using the Tessian’s Parallax Engine and natural language processing technology to keep the most sensitive data and systems private and secure. The Problem Spear phishing is effective because of its highly targeted approach. When it successfully dupes individuals into sending money, sharing data, or downloading malware, it brings significant reputational and monetary risk. Defender protects against these threats through comprehensive safeguards against weak and strong-form impersonation alike. Weak-form impersonation can generally be detected and prevented through the rule-based controls that many enterprises already use. Often this is done by authenticating SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to estimate the legitimacy of the sender. This entails cross-referencing IP addresses, scouring for invisible signatures, and linking senders to their domain names and broader email protocols. Rule-based defences also perform checks to find matches with known display names, modifications to “reply-to” addresses, and newly registered domains. Unfortunately, this is not enough. These systems are limited in scope and not always implemented. DMARC authentication, for example, only protects a domain against direct impersonation, where a bad actor is trying to spoof someone’s actual email address. It fails to address domain or display name lookalike impersonation. Furthermore, global DMARC adoption rates are low. Legacy technology stacks find it difficult to query large datasets in real-time, which means it is often a challenge for systems to quickly recognise and filter phishing emails. Even where these systems are sufficient, weak-form spear phishing is now evolving into a more advanced threat: strong-form spear phishing. This type of spear phishing subverts legacy email security systems by turning to tactics that are difficult for humans and rule-based email security processes to detect. Traditional, pre-defined rule sets cannot fend off strong-form spear phishing because of the almost infinite number of domain and sub-domain, display name and address, and freemail permutations impersonation allows for. Even where they do detect certain impersonations, legacy systems cannot capture the evolving dynamics of email networks, with enterprises developing new relationships every day over email. A rule set would need to constantly be updated in order to remain effective. This is time consuming and resource intensive and inefficient. The Solution Tessian Defender is specifically designed to tackle strong-form impersonation spear phishing. Due to the complexity of strong-form impersonation techniques, having an understanding of email relationships based on historical data and user behavior is critical. Using stateful machine intelligence, Tessian has developed a new approach to thwart spear phishing. Tessian’s Parallax Engine can predict for this user, at this point in time, does this email look like a security threat? Tessian Defender also uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand content within an email and will automatically classify its intent, so it can provide more context to the end user within a warning message, and also highlight the specific risk to security teams.  
Read Blog Post
Integrated Cloud Email Security, Insider Risks, Email DLP
What is an Insider Threat? Insider Threat Definition, Examples, and Solutions
by Tessian Monday, June 29th, 0201
Organizations often focus their security efforts on threats from outside. But increasingly, it’s people inside the organization who cause data breaches. There was a 47% increase in Insider Threat incidents between 2018 and 2020, including via malicious data exfiltration and accidental data loss. And the comprehensive Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report suggests that Insiders are directly responsible for around 22% of security incidents. So, what is an insider threat and how can organizations protect themselves from their own people?
Importantly, there are two distinct types of insider threats, and understanding different motives and methods of exfiltration is key for detection and prevention. Types of Insider Threats The Malicious Insider
Malicious Insiders knowingly and intentionally steal data, money, or other assets. For example, an employee or contractor exfiltrating intellectual property, personal information, or financial information for personal gain. What’s in it for the insider? It depends.   Financial Incentives   Data is extremely valuable.Malicious insiders can sell customer’s information on the dark web. There’s a huge market for personal information—research suggests you can steal a person’s identity for around $1,010.   Malicious Insiders can steal leads, intellectual property, or other confidential information for their own financial gain—causing serious damage to an organization in the process.   Competitive Edge Malicious Insiders can steal company data to get a competitive edge in a new venture. This is more common than you might think. For example, a General Electric employee was imprisoned in 2020 for stealing thousands of proprietary files for use in a rival business. Unsurprisingly, stealing data to gain a competitive edge is most common in competitive industries, like finance and entertainment.   The Negligent (or Unaware) Insider 
Negligent Insiders are just “average” employees doing their jobs. Unfortunately, “to err is human”… which means people can—and do—make mistakes.   Sending a misdirected email   Sending an email to the wrong person is one of the most common ways a negligent insider can lose control of company data. Indeed, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office reports misdirected emails as the number one cause of data breaches.    And according to Tessian platform data, organizations with over 1,000 employees send around 800 misdirected emails every year. We’ve put together 11 Examples of Data Breaches Caused By Misdirected Emails if you want to see how bad this type of Insider Threat can get.   Phishing attacks   Last year, 66% of organizations worldwide experienced spear phishing attacks. Like all social engineering attacks, phishing involves tricking a person into clicking a link, downloading malware, or taking some other action to compromise a company’s security.   A successful phishing attack requires an employee to fall for it. And practically any of your employees could fall for a sophisticated spear phishing attack.Want to know more about this type of Negligent Insider threat? Read Who Are the Most Likely Targets of Spear Phishing Attacks?   Physical data loss    Whether it’s a phone, laptop, or a paper file, losing devices or hard-copy data can constitute a data breach.Indeed, in June 2021, a member of the public top-secret British military documents in a “soggy heap” behind a bus stop.   Looking for more examples of Insider Threats (both malicious and negligent?) Check out this article: 17 Real-World Examples of Insider Threats   How can I protect against Insider Threats?   As we’ve seen, common Insider Threats are common. So why is so hard to prevent them? Detecting and preventing Insider Threats is such a challenge because it requires full visibility over your data—including who has access to it.   This means fully mapping your company’s data, finding all entry and exit points, and identifying all the employees, contractors, and third parties who have access to it. From there, it comes down to training, monitoring, and security.   Training   While security awareness training isn’t the only measure you need to take to improve security, it is important. Security awareness training can help you work towards legal compliance, build threat awareness, and foster a security culture among your employees. Looking for resources to help train your employees? Check out this blog with a shareable PDF.   Monitoring   Insider Threats can be difficult to detect because insiders normally leverage their legitimate access to data. That’s why it’s important to monitor data for signs of potentially suspicious activity.   Telltale signs of an insider threat include: Large data or file transfers Multiple failed logins (or other unusual login activity) Incorrect software access requests Machine’s take over Abuse by Service Accounts Email Security The vast majority of data exfiltration attempts, accidental data loss incidents, and phishing attacks take place via email. Therefore, the best action you can take to prevent insider threats is to implement an email security solution.   Tessian is a machine learning-powered email security solution that uses anomaly detection, behavioral analysis, and natural language processing to detect data loss.   Tessian Enforcer detects data exfiltration attempts and non-compliant emails Tessian Guardian detects misdirected emails and misattached files Tessian Defender detects and prevents spear phishing attacks How does Tessian detect and prevent Insider Threats? Tessian’s machine learning algorithms analyze your company’s email data. The software learns every employee’s normal communication patterns and maps their trusted email relationships — both inside and outside your organization. Tessian inspects the content and metadata of inbound emails for any signals suggestive of phishing—like suspicious payloads, geophysical locations, IP addresses, email clients—or data exfiltration—like anomalous attachments, content, or sending patterns. Once it detects a threat, Tessian alerts employees and administrators with clear, concise, contextual warnings that reinforce security awareness training
Read More