Ultimate Guide to Email Filtering Solutions

Email filtering is a way to ensure that your company remains safe from spam, credential and data theft, viruses, ransomware, and other malware. Comprehensive email filtering solutions like SpamTitan also provide additional benefits, including enterprise help adhering to regulations and data protection laws. In addition, email filtering solutions are increasingly used to mitigate the onslaught of spam and phishing emails. If you support a business, you know that corporations get thousands of targeted spam messages monthly –daily for large enterprises--, and they can be a nuisance to your IT storage budget.

Advanced email filters, such as SpamTitan, use intelligent technologies to keep ahead of the ever-changing security threat landscape increasingly dependent on delivering cyber-attacks via email. Email is continuously reported as the primary attack vector for threat actors, so hardening your security stops many of the common attacks from the start. Instead of relying on proactive security with

antivirus software and intrusion detection, email filtering solutions stop the threat before it ever reaches your environment. SpamTitan is a proven data protection and email security solution for large and small corporations. We also have email filtering solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) to help them protect their clients from email-based attacks.

What is an Email Filtering Solution?

There are several types of email filtering solutions. Determining which solutions best fit your organization should be based on a combination of the deployment options, features, ease-of-use, customer support, effectiveness, and functions. Email filtering solutions typically secure your organization from email-borne threats and may also protect against threats to egress messages, meaning the messages sent from your email server to customers. A full spectrum of email security always supports outbound and inbound emails to stop malware used to spread potential threats to clients. Outbound email protection protects customers and your business reputation. Email protection is based on detecting known and emerging threats delivered via email. If an email is dangerous, the filter usually quarantines it before destroying it; the latter depends on company policies.

Email filtering solutions are typically cloud-based and installed on-premises. Some on-premises deployments may require additional hardware appliances to cover an entire environment fully. Once deployed and configured, the email filtering service will run in the background to stop unwanted and dangerous emails from entering employees' inboxes.

You aren’t limited to on-premises solutions with SpamTitan. If you want to offload the expense, deployment costs, and management of an effective email solution, SpamTitan can also run in the cloud. With a few configuration changes, you can implement an enterprise-tier email filtering security system for all inbound and outbound email messages. Hardware and email security applications run in the cloud, so administrators no longer need to support the infrastructure, keep up with software updates, or worry about downtime from buggy security.

Why Should a Company Use an Email Filtering Solution? 

Email-borne phishing, scams, social engineering, and spam affect the increasing threat levels organizations experience. What makes phishing especially dangerous is relying on human interaction to detect and stop it. Phishing is increasingly more challenging to detect, and even people experienced with phishing messages fall victim to them when they are stressed, busy, or not feeling well. The Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG) keeps track of volumes and trends in phishing and scam emails, and their report illustrates the importance of email security for any organization. The latest APWG report covering Q1 2024 recorded 963,994 phishing attacks. Attackers now use phone-based attacks, making phishing much more effective than in previous years. In addition, email-borne attacks such as Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams continue to threaten businesses and their social media presence. Money transfer requests increased by 50% in Q1 2024 to $84,059.

Reports such as the APWG show that email for scams and phishing is still a significant route into an organization for cybercriminals. Phishing research also indicates that this type of cyber-attack is still prevalent and looks set to continue as the most popular cyber-attack vector, making phishing a long-term consecutive attack vector for years. Reports like the APWG also show that phishing and spam trends wax and wane, and new emerging techniques and tactics appear. This all shapes how an email filtering solution must operate. Any email security deployed to your environment must be able to change and adapt as attackers find new ways to bypass detection.

SpamTitan is deployed in a cloud-based environment and automatically updates without administrative intervention. Developers for SpamTitan incorporate threat intelligence into their updates so that any emerging threats are covered and detected. Using artificial intelligence, SpamTitan adapts to changes and can stop zero-day threats.

Advanced email filtering solutions are designed to tackle large volumes of malicious and spam emails. Even if your inbound and outbound email count is low, you could have thousands daily as your business grows. Without the automation offered by email filtering solutions, employees would have to wade through many emails daily to find legitimate ones manually. Also, human error is more likely if spam or phishing emails litter employees' inboxes. Relying on

human detection is the worst cybersecurity strategy, even when security awareness training is offered during onboarding. Employees may accidentally download malicious attachments or click dangerous links. With just one targeted victim, an attacker can install malware on the local user's computer or ransomware on the network. With elevated privileges, the attacker can send additional phishing messages or use malware to extract sensitive data, including network credentials.

Benefits of Using an Email Filtering Solution

A Company that Uses Email Filtering Solutions Can Expect the Following Benefits:

Remove Hurdles Interfering with Productivity

Free employees from the burden of spam detection and spam email deletion. Security awareness training educates employees about the dangers of phishing, but spam is a nuisance that requires time out of their day to read, detect, and delete messages. Employees will be able to focus unhindered on the legitimate emails in their inboxes. This time-saving solution removes barriers to productivity and removes the responsibility of employees for spam and phishing detection.

Multi-layered Email Filters Provide More Accurate and Powerful Protection

Effective email filters apply multiple layers of increasingly sophisticated anti-spam and anti-phishing technologies to detect and filter illegitimate emails. Phishing and spam attacks adapt, so your solution should have multiple layers that adapt to evolving threats. Zero-day threats might pass the first layer, but the following layers catch it and stop the danger from being delivered to the targeted user’s inbox. This layered strategy removes the need to remove dangerous or spam emails manually. The various layers of protection will finely filter out these emails so employees don't have to, and each layer adds more accuracy to avoid false negatives.

Reduce the Risk of Malware Infection on Local Machines and the Entire Business Network Environment

Emails are a popular method to deliver malware directly or via malicious websites. According to research from Coveware, email was the most popular method to deliver ransomware. Malware like trojan horses leaves remote control software on a user’s device, which can be used remotely during off-business hours. Because the user’s computer is remotely controlled, the attacker can access all applications the targeted employee has access to. Ransomware is also a threat to data protection and the business environment. After installing ransomware, a business might be out of commission when critical productivity files are encrypted and held for ransom. Many companies are forced to pay a seven-figure ransom to get their files back, and not every attacker reverses the encryption to honor their part of the deal.

2023 Coveware report of ransomware target business size.

An email filtering service will use techniques such as code analysis and identification of malicious links in an email to filter them out before they enter the corporate network. Several factors go into malicious email detection, including email server IP address, country from where the email was sent, embedded links, language, attachments, and other triggers and signatures.

Reduce the Risk of Exposed and Stolen Data

Phishing was the primary attack vector in social engineering, which caused 68% of data breaches in 2023, according to a Verizon report. The EU's ENISA (European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) states, "Phishing remains a popular technique, but we see new forms of phishing arising, such as spear-phishing, whaling, smishing, and vishing." ENISA also points out that new zero-day exploits are being used effectively to attack organizations. As threat actors create much more effective attacks that bypass traditional security systems, SpamTitan continues to adapt to detect these new emerging threats. SpamTitan uses multiple anti-phishing techniques to identify and filter sophisticated phishing attempts, including zero-day threats.

Reduce the Risk of Social Engineering

Cyber scams such as Business Email Compromise (BEC) and specialized phishing tactics, including clone and barrel phishing, use social engineering to trick employees. An email filtering service can identify and stop cleverly composed scam emails before they trick an employee. SpamTitan detects all forms of phishing and spam, including messages meant to “spray” as many people as possible. Spear-phishing targets high-privilege employees with credentials and authority to access sensitive information.

Adhere to Regulations and Data Protection Laws

Email and data protection regulations put organizations under pressure to adhere to strict requirements. Examples of these regulations include CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and HIPAA. Sometimes, companies must adhere to several related regulations representing sector regulations and local laws, such as protections for financial customers or underage students. Non-compliance can lead to severe penalties, including hefty fines in the seven figures. It’s also possible for significant data breaches to bankrupt small companies, making email security more critical than ever. SpamTitan provides highly configurable options to ensure that the email filtering techniques meet local and federal regulation requirements. Dashboards and reports can be used to generate reports to document compliance and validate that your email filter solution is working for you. 

SpamTitan cloud email filtering uses multiple security measures to protect emails, each detecting a specific spam, phishing, or malware indicator.

Types of Email Filtering 

Email filtering solutions provide security by filtering spam emails, graymail, and phishing.

Email Spam Filtering

Spam is a significant concern for many organizations as the volumes are massive. Exhausting storage hardware is expensive, and an email filtering solution like SpamTitan can significantly reduce the budgets necessary to store nuisance messages and phishing. The figures for spam vary, but one report found that almost half of the emails received were spam. Email spam filtering solutions offer an automated method to remove spam at the source.

Graymail Filtering

Graymail is a legitimate email, usually presented as newsletters or mass marketing, but it can still become unwanted over time. These messages might not be a nuisance, but storing old messages exhausts storage capacity and IT budgets. Advanced email filtering solutions should offer a mechanism for employees to set these emails as undesirable and for the email filtering solution to remove these emails automatically. A sweep of old graymail no longer relevant or necessary might also be necessary to free up storage space.

Email Phishing Filtering

Phishing emails are the most dangerous of all email-based threats. Cybercriminals are continuously changing their tactics to avoid detection by both employees and static email filters. Therefore, advanced email filters that use intelligent and multi-faceted layers of threat detection are needed to filter phishing emails. SpamTitan incorporates threat intelligence and artificial intelligence to catch especially advanced threats built to bypass detection.

Deployment Options for Email Filtering Solutions

Email filtering solutions are usually deployed in one of three typical ways or as a hybrid deployment:

On-Premises (physical appliance)

Some companies may need to use an appliance-based email filtering solution and keep their email security in-house, also known as on-premises. An appliance is a physical device that isolates all internal data. Typically, this appliance is managed by an in-house IT team. This team must maintain, manage, and update the appliance, so the team must be highly skilled in using the device and must take time out of their work week to update the software and maintain configurations and user access. Also, this process is usually manual and time-consuming. Scalability is challenging, and new appliances may need to be added if a company grows.

Cloud-Based Email Filter (SaaS)

As more companies put their apps and workloads into the cloud, it also makes sense to use a cloud-based email filtering solution. Cloud-based email filtering solutions are flexible, affordable, and scalable. Because the filtering solution is delivered as a Software-as-a-Service solution, it can be cost-effective, centrally managed, and updated quickly. Cloud email filters like SpamTitan provide a mechanism to promptly deploy email protection across the expanded network, including remote user endpoints and devices. Cloud-based spam filters are hosted in the cloud, so they do not require any capital expense. Businesses pay a monthly subscription fee, but no administrative overhead is necessary to manage the email security software. Updates in protection techniques can be deployed automatically and are fast so that with cloud-based email filtering, even zero days and emerging threats can be prevented.

Managed Service Provider (Cloud)

Small to medium-sized companies can benefit from world-class enterprise-level email filtering solutions using an MSP to deploy and manage their email protection. Advanced email filtering solutions such as SpamTitan are designed to be delivered using an MSP model. TitanShield is TitanHQ's MSP program that provides SpamTitan and other TitanHQ email security tools to organizations worldwide. TitanShield uses a perfect SaaS model for an MSP, allowing the MSP to deliver centrally managed security services to SMBs. 

TitanHQ's SpamTitan email filtering solution receives consistently high marks in reviews when compared to any of the competitive email security solutions.

SpamTitan vs. Competitive Email Filtering Solutions. 

In the most recent Virus Bulletin test (June 2024)  SpamTitan securing a second consecutive VBSpam+ award from Virus Bulletin. Virus Bulletin is a world-renowned independent testing and certification body, active in testing, reviewing and benchmarking security solutions for over 20 years. SpamTitan outperformed industry rivals including Mimecast, N-Able and Sophos.

In the Q2 2024 VBSpam test, a key component of Virus Bulletin's ongoing evaluation of security products, TitanHQ achieved an exceptional top 2 position and an exemplary 99.99% Phishing Catch Rate.

Out of the extensive range of email security solutions, TitanHQ's email security suite was rigorously evaluated against various email types – including wanted, unwanted, and malicious email – in independent testing conducted by Virus Bulletin.

Among the twelve email solutions publicly tested, SpamTitan emerged as one of the top two performers with an astonishing spam catch rate exceeding 99.98% and an exceptional phishing catch rate of 99.99%, all while maintaining an impeccable record of zero false positives of any kind. These results underline the reliability and efficacy of our solutions, providing our customers with the security and protection they need.

SpamTitan regularly receives excellent reviews and typically wins out over the competition. Developers for SpamTitan have a reputation for offering world-class customer support. We help you deploy the spam filtering solution should your administrators run into any hurdles. Some examples of recent studies from the trusted review site Capterra are shown below each competitor.

There are several email filtering solutions in the marketplace. Evaluation of the offerings of email security products should be based on your organization's specific email security needs, type of deployment required, and cost. 

Below, TitanHQ has performed a brief competitive analysis of four key email filtering players. 

Barracuda Sentinel

Barracuda Sentinel is a cloud email filtering solution that directly integrates with Office 365. The solution uses AI-enabled technologies to track behavior and detect phishing attempts. Barracuda Sentinel generates alerts sent to administrators of the solution whenever unusual activity is identified. Malicious emails are placed into quarantine. 

Source: Capterra Reviews

SpamTitan beats Barracuda Email Security in the following areas:

• Pricing: SpamTitan is more cost-effective.
• Email routing: SpamTitan provides email routing.
• Support: SpamTitan provides more extensive support options.
• Organization focus: SpamTitan is designed for all sized organizations, including smaller companies. Barracuda Sentinel is more appropriate for larger enterprises.
• MSP support: SpamTitan is designed for deployment and management by an MSP. Barracuda Sentinel has been criticized for inflexible pricing for MSPs.
• Barracuda Sentinel also offers: 
• Deployment: SaaS allows for centralized deployment and management
• Threat intelligence: Over 170,000 active sites provide threat intelligence (see below for SpamTitan's "Collaborative spam fingerprint."
• Layered security: provides layers of email protection techniques to capture spam, phishing, and other email-borne threats.

Mimecast Secure Email Gateway

Mimecast Secure Email Gateway is a cloud-based email filtering solution. The gateway prevents phishing and email spam from reaching employee inboxes. The solution also provides an email archive service. 

Source: Capterra Reviews

SpamTitan beats Mimecast in the following areas:

• Pricing: SpamTitan cost is significantly lower than Mimecast's.
• Administration: SpamTitan has an easy-to-use administration console.
• Deployment: SpamTitan is straightforward and provides options that include on-premise.
• Mimecast also offers:
• Cloud-based: offers centralized deployment and management. 
• Real-time threat analysis.
• Outbound email protection: provides data loss prevention (DLP) to prevent sensitive data from leaving an organization.

Proofpoint Email Security and Protection

Proofpoint Essentials is an email filtering gateway for the SMB (small to medium-sized company) market. Proofpoint Essentials prevents phishing and attachment scanning to prevent malware infection. 

Source: Capterra Reviews

SpamTitan beats Proofpoint in the following areas:

• Administration: The main differences between Proofpoint Essentials and SpamTitan are in the solutions' ease of use and administration. Overall, SpamTitan is more straightforward to use and administer than Proofpoint Essentials. 
• Advanced threat intelligence: SpamTitan uses advanced threat intelligence, whereas Proofpoint focuses more on anti-malware.
• Proofpoint also offers:
• Policy-driven DLP: to stop sensitive data from leaving corporate control.
• Automated email encryption: automatically encrypts certain emails.
• Granular controls: Per-user controls and quarantine access for emergencies and email continuity.

Cisco Secure Email

Cisco Secure Email is a cloud-based email security product that protects against phishing and spam. The solution uses local and global threat intelligence from Talos™.

Source: Capterra Reviews

SpamTitan beats Cisco Secure Email in several areas, including the following:

• Deployment: Cisco is cloud-only, whereas SpamTitan has cloud and on-premise deployment options.
• Organization focus: SpamTitan is designed for organizations of all sizes, including smaller companies. However, Cisco Secure Email is more appropriate for larger enterprises.
• API: SpamTitan offers an API that allows deep integration into MSP stacks and corporate networks.
• Cisco Secure Email also offers:
• Intelligent threat analytics: uses machine learning techniques to detect emerging threats.
• Automation and integration: integrates with Microsoft 365 to automate email protection.

Why Choose SpamTitan?

TitanHQ's SpamTitan email filtering solution receives consistently high marks in reviews when compared to any of the competitive email security solutions. There are many reasons for this, not only that SpamTitan has powerful technology ensuring that both known and emerging threats are detected and stopped. In addition, SpamTitan is an all-rounder in delivering and maintaining the highest levels of email security. SpamTitan provides technology backed by a well-designed service to enable an effective email filtering solution. Some of the core features that have made SpamTitan the email filtering solution of choice include the following:

Features of SpamTitan Anti-Spam Service

• 99.99% catch rate for spam, viruses, malware, and other email threats; 0.003% false positive rate
• Anti-Spam Engine provides centralized control of anti-spam policies and permissions.
• Cloud-based, easy to deploy, administer, and update.
• Unobtrusive to end users, it prevents accidents and human error.
• Advanced reporting provides valuable insight into email security data; reports are comprehensive, giving at-a-glance views, making them ideal for presentation to senior management.
• Provides email protection, blocking over 99.9% of spam, viruses, malware, and other email threats.
• Offers a flexible solution suitable for both small and big businesses.
• SpamTitan is easy to set up, simple to configure, and up and running in minutes.
• A central web console uses privileged access control for users to manage spam filters securely.
• Updates can be fully automated and pushed out to end-user devices, including remote workers.
• It supports existing identity systems and robust authentication, including dynamic and aliases, file recipient verification, and SASL authentication.
• Supports local language.
• SpamTitan is an accurate service, with no hardware or endpoint software required, and is also operating system agnostic.

Multi-Layers of Email Protection to Capture Threats as they Happen

SpamTitan cloud email filtering uses multiple security measures to protect emails, each detecting a specific spam, phishing, or malware indicator. Signatures from various threats in the wild trigger advanced SpamTitan filters that take flagged messages and send them to quarantine for further review. The multiple layers comprise a mix of:

• Harvesting/dictionary attack protection
• Collaborative spam fingerprint checks
• RBL tests (real-time blackhole list)
• Bayesian analysis
• Rule-based spam scoring
• Allow and block list filters. 

These multiple layers of protection are applied to both inbound and outbound emails; the emails are scanned, looking for signals and content associated with spam, malware, zero-day threats, phishing, social engineering, and other advanced threats, including ransomware. When a suspicious email is detected, it never reaches the employee's inbox. In addition, advanced machine learning, trained using millions of real-time data points, detects unknown and emerging threats.

Deployment Options to Fit Your Organization 

Cloud email filtering solutions differ from virtual or physical appliances as the filtering mechanisms operate in the cloud. Cloud-based solutions are easy to deploy and configure. By making a small change to a mail exchanger (MX) record, the redirection of inbound and outbound emails through the service provider's server is optimized.

Centralized for Easy Administration

The easy administration of an email filtering solution is an essential feature of SpamTitan; an easy-to-use, configurable, policy-enabled service provides a template for administrators to work with. In addition, SpamTitan is a cloud-based spam filtering solution. Therefore, the administration is centralized. Using a central console, an administrator can roll out updates, new policies, and rules quickly and efficiently to all connected devices across the expanded corporate network. Having this level of central control and automation of updates is critical in preventing attacks from emerging threats.

Minimal Maintenance and Little Overhead

If deploying on-premise or relying on in-house IT teams, you want to minimize their workload. SpamTitan is a cloud-based email filtering solution that can be deployed as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or on-premise. The solution is designed to require minimal maintenance. SpamTitan can also be delivered by an MSP who can provide always-on email security on behalf of your organization: the email filtering service is hosted for you and is available on demand. An MSP-serviced company has minimal, if any, maintenance overhead with no capital investment, paying only a subscription charge; email security is cost-effective and a known-cost entity.

Granular and Local Policies that Meet Regulations

SpamTitan ensures that the control of email filtering policies will fit your specific industry and regulatory needs by making them granular and configurable. Policies can be applied per individual, user group, or business-wide and are integrated with directory services such as AD to ensure enforcement. This granularity and ease of update mean that even when regulations change, you can quickly update and deploy new policies and rules to maintain compliance.

No matter the size or type of organization, spammers, and cybercriminals will take advantage of your email system. By choosing the right email filtering solution for your company, you can regain control, prevent cyberattacks, and help employees cope with the burden of spam.

If you’d like to stop 99.99% of spam emails from landing in your customers' or employees’ inboxes, check out the free demo of the SpamTitan anti-spam service.