UST Global keeps attackers at bay with Cisco Email Security

“Cisco’s commitment to the security portfolio is evident from its security stack line staying on top of competition. Cisco chose UST Global as its first production customer to run the stack in AWS cloud as part of the long standing relationship and trust.”

Email: lifeline or deathtrap?

Picture this: you receive an email from your boss titled ‘important’, and it has an attachment. Naturally, you don’t think twice about opening it. But what you do not notice is that the email ID has a slight aberration, and it’s actually sent by a hacker trying to access your network. Most security breaches happen as quickly and simply as that.

Today email is the most important and widely used communication platform for organizations. And because of that, it’s also the most common method used in security breaches.

For UST Global, the scenario was no different. As a company that delivers digital, IT services and solutions to Global 1000 companies, security was of utmost importance.

With user mailboxes in the cloud and on premise, the mail flow configured for UST Global is complex. The company has to deal with large numbers of spam mails every single day, and controlling phishing attacks is a challenge in such scenarios.

Moreover the names and employee details of the company’s top executives are available on various public sites, which makes it easier for attackers to send out phishing emails.

Defending against advanced threats requires an advanced security solution

UST Global was looking for a secure email gateway solution that could protect its complex mail flow configuration across the cloud and on premise. It wanted a solution that could handle the huge amount of inbound and outbound mails with its organization security check. Most importantly, it wanted to control phishing emails.

To check the huge volume of spam mails, the company opted for Cisco Email Security on premises for its email gateway solution. After evaluating the solution for six months, UST Global was convinced that Cisco Email Security was able to handle the mail flow.The Cisco  Email Security appliance was configured as the centralized mail flow device, to  route  all inbound and outbound mails across all domains of the organization.

“Cisco Email Security in the cloud provides us an unparalleled solution to meet UST Global’s email security requirements," says Sam Felix - Infrastructure Architect, UST Global.

“Cisco Email Security has been a class-leading solution for the last decade. Cisco has shown its commitment to align with industry trends by providing the SaaS platform for customers. This aligns very much with UST Global’s cloud and security strategy,” says Praveen Raveendran, Head of IT, UST-Global.

The Cisco Email Security advantage

The Cisco Email Security solution was rolled out in 30 days, and it covers the company’s entire email services. With the solution in place, UST Global found that:

• Spam flood has been controlled, email security checks are in-place as per the organization’s
• Phishing attacks through emails are mitigated with DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance).
• The company’s emails are better protected from viruses and malware, and filter settings have been configured for every user in the organization.
• In addition to all incoming and outgoing emails being scanned, there is also a TLS (Transport Layer Security) check for emails going out to customers.
• Employees feel safer, and the IT security team is satisfied with the security measures that have been applied at the email gateway solution. There is a tremendous increase in the mails that are captured by threat analysis engines.
• The solution has given UST Global a wide variety of control options to configure the inflow and outflow of messages, monitor inbound and outbound traffic for various threat analysis, malicious mails, legitimate mails, etc.
• Top executives are relieved that the malicious emails going out in their name have been minimized.

In conclusion

Cisco Email Security has enabled UST Global to communicate securely. With this solution, the company can now effectively combat business email compromise (BEC), ransomware, advanced malware, phishing, spam, and data loss with a multilayered approach to security.