Email Security for Business: Managed Protection Against Phishing and Ransomware

The Email Threat Landscape

Email-based attacks against businesses have become more targeted and more convincing. Phishing emails no longer arrive with obvious spelling errors — modern campaigns are researched, personalised, and sent from compromised legitimate accounts or convincingly spoofed domains. Business email compromise (BEC) attacks impersonate executives or suppliers to divert payments. Malicious attachments deliver ransomware with a single click.

47% rise in attacks evading Microsoft's native defences and secure email gateways (SEGs) — KnowBe4 2025 Phishing Benchmark Report. (Microsoft)

Security Management is the fastest-growing MDM segment, driven by mobile ransomware and phishing threats (Yahoo Finance MDM report, 2025). (Uk)

84% of SMBs that reported breaches faced phishing attacks. (UK Government)

The built-in spam filtering in Microsoft 365 is designed for high-volume generic threats. It is less effective against low-volume, targeted attacks where the attacker has taken time to bypass automated detection. A dedicated email security gateway adds additional detection layers specifically designed for these targeted threats.

What AMVIA's Email Security Service Covers

AMVIA deploys and manages Barracuda Email Security Gateway as a cloud-based filtering service that sits in front of your Microsoft 365 mailboxes. All inbound email passes through Barracuda's filtering engine before reaching Exchange Online, with multi-layer analysis covering spam, malware, phishing, impersonation, and link analysis.

Outbound email filtering is also configured, protecting your domain reputation by catching malware or spam sent from compromised accounts within your organisation — important for businesses where a compromised account sending spam could result in your domain being blacklisted.

Anti-Phishing and Impersonation Protection

Barracuda's anti-phishing capability analyses incoming email for domain spoofing, display name impersonation, and header anomalies that indicate the sender is not who they claim to be. Emails impersonating your executives, finance team, or known suppliers are flagged or blocked before delivery.

DMARC, DKIM, and SPF enforcement is configured as part of the service, verifying that emails claiming to be from legitimate domains are actually sent from authorised mail servers. This both protects your staff from inbound spoofing and protects your domain from being used to spoof others.

Sandboxing and Link Analysis

Attachments and links in email are analysed in a sandboxed environment before delivery. Suspicious attachments are detonated in an isolated environment to observe behaviour — ransomware, credential stealers, and other malware are identified through behaviour analysis rather than relying solely on signature matching. Links are rewritten and checked at click-time, providing protection even against URLs that were clean at delivery but later become malicious.

This time-of-click URL scanning is particularly important against phishing campaigns that use legitimate link-shortening services or hosting platforms to avoid detection at delivery, only activating the malicious payload after the email has passed filtering.

Email Encryption

Barracuda Email Security Gateway includes email encryption capability for organisations that need to send confidential information — client data, financial details, or documents containing personal information — securely by email. Encryption policies can be configured to apply automatically based on content, keywords, or recipient domain, reducing reliance on staff remembering to encrypt manually.

Continuity and Archiving

The service includes email continuity — if Microsoft 365 experiences a service outage, Barracuda provides a temporary mailbox so your staff can continue sending and receiving email until the main service is restored. Email archiving is available as an optional addition, providing a tamper-proof email archive that can support compliance and legal hold requirements.

AMVIA Management and Monitoring

AMVIA configures and manages the Barracuda platform, reviewing filtering policies, monitoring quarantine queues, and adjusting rules based on emerging threats. Monthly reports cover email volume, threats blocked, false positives, and any configuration changes made. AMVIA's security team reviews threat trends and updates filtering rules proactively.