Security

Review: Mimecast Email Security Provides Easy Integration

This cloud-based platform can protect all aspects of a healthcare organization’s email communications.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

When ransomware attacks began targeting hospitals and schools a few years ago, cybercriminals found that payment was often swiftly made. For hospitals, cyberattacks could jeopardize patient care. Thus, healthcare systems drew scrutiny for their cyber vulnerabilities.

The primary method of delivery for ransomware is email. Healthcare systems depend on email, and workers are often too overworked to scrutinize their inboxes. Unfortunately, it only takes one person opening a malicious link to start a successful attack.

The Mimecast Email Security platform was designed with this threat environment in mind. It’s a cloud-based service, so it can easily integrate with Office 365, Google Workspace and most other email programs.

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Create Zones of Security with Mimecast

Once in place, Mimecast locks down email and protects it in multiple ways so that even the most advanced, sneakiest cyberattacks, such as phishing or business impersonation, won’t be able to launch, even if a user falls for the ruse. That’s because Mimecast works in distinct zones to halt even blended threats.

First, Mimecast protects users at the perimeter using the Mimecast gateway. When tested using Office 365 and Google Workspace, it stopped mail with malicious attachments, spoofed domains and other blended threats. It can even be tasked with protecting outbound email and keeping critical, confidential or patient information from leaving via email channels.

That perimeter security is extremely effective, but it’s not enough by itself. Thankfully, Mimecast goes beyond a single layer of protection. Even if a coworker has an email password stolen, Mimecast can detect when an attacker starts using a compromised account to capture more data or launch an internal attack.

An Email Protection Platform that Offers Ease and Integration

Finally, an optional feature of the Mimecast service scans the internet for fake websites that try to mimic a healthcare facility. Mimecast can alert administrators about such sites and assist in having them taken down.

The Mimecast email protection platform is easy to use, integrates with almost any existing email service and provides multiple layers of protection without requiring legions of internal IT staff. It’s an elegant solution to an increasingly critical problem, and one that can keep ransomware threats and cybercriminals from disrupting healthcare operations and threatening lives.

Maintain Email Health with Mimecast

The Mimecast Email Security platform comes packed with multiple layers of protection to catch threats. Here’s a look at the Mimecast administrator interface to show how easy it is to respond to those dangerous attacks.

With a cloud-based interface and a lot of automation, the Mimecast Email Security platform can practically run itself. After the initial installation and setup, there’s not much more work needed to keep things running smoothly. However, Mimecast offers a lot of powerful tools for administrators who want to carefully monitor their organization and improve security.

Because the platform is cloud-based, everything can be monitored through a so-called single pane of glass. Every action that the platform takes is recorded in the administrator interface, which provides very granular information. Administrators can see not only what kind of threats users are encountering, but also the actions they take in response.

DISCOVER: 7 email security strategies to keep patient data safe from evolving cyberattacks.

For example, maybe a user was hit with a phishing scam that Mimecast protected them from by putting that user into an isolated browser when he or she tried to follow a malicious link. The hospital and the user were both protected, but the user could still prove to be a weak spot if good security practices continue to be ignored.

Users with bad security habits can be a big problem, especially at larger organizations. With Mimecast, administrators can assign training to those who constantly ignore good cyber hygiene. The training provided by Mimecast is extremely intuitive, showing actual threats in a real-world environment using friendly and well-produced videos. Users learn the proper way to respond to various threats and how to spot suspicious emails.

For even better protection, administrators can incorporate threat intelligence gathered from other devices and platforms into Mimecast to give it greater threat awareness. And they can send information back the other way, capturing data about the latest threats Mimecast encounters and sharing that information with a security information and event management platform or other defensive tools.

The Mimecast Email Security administrator portal is a force multiplier when combined with the multitiered defenses the platform offers. It allows a single administrator or a small team to punch well above its weight and keep even large hospitals and healthcare systems safe from the increasingly dangerous world of email-based threats.

SPECIFICATIONS

PRODUCT TYPE: Cloud-based email security platform
WORKS WITH: Office 365, Exchange, Gmail, Mimecast portal, independent webmail platforms
THREATS MITIGATED: Ransomware, phishing, impersonation attacks, data leak protection, malicious attachments, others
BRAND PROTECTION: Prevents illegitimate mail from leaving organization
EXTRAS: Threat intelligence integration, large file transfer engine to keep mail channel bandwidth free