Sophos Vs Microsoft 365 Email Security: Why A Layered Defense Holds Relevance

Imagine one of the employees from your organization is sipping coffee while performing his routine tasks. Numerous emails pop up in his inbox. The emails were from various clients, consisting of invoices and invites. One of the emails, disguised as normal, feels harmless to the employee.

A request from the CEO to check the contract that looks genuine. One click and your organization is witnessing a major data breach or financial fraud in the next second! In today’s dynamically growing environment, Email holds significant relevance to connect with clients. Although being a necessity for organizations, it is an arsenal for cybercriminals.

Email security is similar to constructing a wall. Microsoft 365 offers the essential groundwork of bricks. But Sophos adds the mortar which fills gaps, fixes the cracks, and anchors everything together. Email is the most vulnerable to attacks. Microsoft 365 is an excellent tool for collaboration, but its email security is not capable of providing advanced protection.

That’s where Sophos email security steps in as a game changer. But a major concern arises whether we need both the software or if one is sufficient? In this blog, we will explore the pros and cons of both the software, simultaneously shedding light on which one to adopt.

What Is Email Security?

Email security is the protection of a corporation’s email from potential cyber threats by leveraging certain technologies and policies. It includes filtering out suspicious messages, spotting impersonation attempts, stopping unauthorized access, and securing the confidentiality of the organization.

It’s not only limited to blocking and removing spam messages, but there are many more risks, such as phishing attacks, business email compromises, embedded malware attachments, misleading URLs, ransomware attacks, and accidental data leaks. Attackers perceive email as the easiest gateway to penetrate the system.

What Microsoft 365 Brings To The Table?

Microsoft is aware of the fact that emails are facing relentless attacks. It offers Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 in premium plans.

What does it comprise?

• Anti-spam and malware filters to remove the junk.
• Core phishing detection in a limited manner.
• Safe Attachments and Safe Links to scan suspicious files and links.
• Isolation features for suspicious files.
• Policy management tools for compliance.

Areas Where It Excels

• Smooth integration with Outlook and other Microsoft products.
• Real-time protection through Microsoft’s threat intelligence ecosystem.
• EOP provides affordable email security bundled with every MS365 license.

Areas Where It Underperforms

Attackers have smartly transformed their strategies. Filters of Microsoft can handle generic spam, but highly strategized phishing and disguised attacks often slip through.

Complicated policies, slower detection, and fewer features in basic plans make Microsoft’s security is feasible for everyday nuisances- but it fails to provide advanced protection against smart breaches.

How Sophos Transformed The Game

Sophos steps in as a game changer, capable of detecting and stopping the threats that get bypassed by Microsoft’s defenses.

What It Brings

• AI-Powered Disguise Detection to spot fake emails.
• Live URL detection at the time of click.
• Attachment scanning in a virtual environment to detect threats before they reach the inbox.
• Sophos Labs offers proactive defence against zero-day attacks through global intelligence feeds.
• Data loss prevention and encryption to secure sensitive information.
• Centralized dashboard for reporting and configuration.

Why is it important?

Microsoft reacts instantly, but Sophos hunts proactively. It is not confined to removing generic spam; it focuses on stopping the tricks that cybercriminals utilize to carry out major attacks.

Consider Microsoft as the main lock, and Sophos is the CCTV cameras, WatchGuard, and a dog, adding a layered protection to your system.

Real World Scenarios Showcasing Microsoft’s Underperformance

Some of the organizations might think that adding Sophos is unnecessary. To understand the importance of layering, let us look at some of the common attack scenarios:

• CEO Fraud: An attacker registers a domain like yourcOmpany.com instead of yourcompany.com. They will email you, disguised as the CEO, demanding urgent approval for the transfer. Microsoft may bypass it. But Sophos detects impersonations and stops them immediately.
• Exploited Links: A link may appear clean and harmless at the time of delivery, but it will redirect to a fraudulent or phishing site. Microsoft might not detect it at that moment, but Sophos’s live URL detection will protect users even several hours later.
• Zero-Day Malware: Attackers may send ransomware as an attachment. Microsoft’s filters might not detect it, but Sophos scans the attachment before it reaches the inbox.

Do You Really Need Both?

• MS365 alone offers baseline coverage for normal threats.
• Sophos alone offers advanced protection against major threats, but businesses still require Microsoft 365’s productivity suite.
• Microsoft + Sophos offers robust and layered protection against advanced threats.

Although a single solution helps, they are not foolproof. Attackers are constantly devising new strategies to carry out advanced threats. By mortaring Microsoft’s core defenses with Sophos, you create a multi-layered system, where if one layer fails due to some issues, the other layer steps in. This drastically minimizes the risk of a major breach.

Critical Questions To Ask Before Deciding

Still doubtful? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is email being accessed from various endpoints beyond the corporate network?
• Have we experienced phishing attempts in the past year?
• Are we operating under strict regulations like HIPAA and RBI?
• Is an operational failure from a malware attack going to impact our operations?

If yes, then you are going to need more coverage than the minimum Microsoft provided.

Conclusion

Email isn’t a communications tool, it’s at the center of cyber warfare. Microsoft 365’s security only provides basic protection, and today, basic is not enough.. If businesses layer Sophos Email Security on top of Microsoft 365’s basic defenses, they gain the additional advantage of AI-powered impersonation detection and live URL and attachment scanning features to secure their systems from smart attackers.

Organizations that care about their brand reputation and protecting their customers’ data will eventually move to layered protection implementation rather than individual software. When you are prepared to defend yourself better, contact Wroffy Technologies, a certified and trusted Sophos partner around the globe. It can assess your Microsoft 365 environment and incorporate Sophos into that environment.