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Innovations in Barracuda’s AI-enabled email protection boost defenses against new and evolving threats

Superior detection efficacy, international expansion, and ongoing advances lead to double-digit growth
 
 

Campbell, Calif. (May 14, 2024) –

Highlights:

  • Barracuda’s ongoing investment in machine learning delivers improvements in detection efficacy.
  • New innovations deliver enhanced user experience, reporting, data loss engine, and data residency support for international customers.
  • AI-enabled email protection helps Microsoft 365 customers to block 70% more business email compromise attacks than when relying on native security alone.
  • Barracuda’s Email Protection SaaS business experienced double-digit growth, with MSPs representing the fastest growing channel segment.

Barracuda Networks, Inc., a trusted partner and leading provider of cloud-first security solutions, today announced increased efficacy with its Email Protection platform and additional AI innovation for better defenses against emerging threats. According to Barracuda’s research based on phishing email detections between January 2024 and April 2024, using Microsoft 365 native security alone, without a complementary cloud-native API-based email security solution, has a miss rate of 47%. The Microsoft miss rate is higher for more advanced email attacks: Microsoft business email compromise detection has a 70% miss rate, and conversation hijacking attacks are missed at a rate of 87%.

Barracuda’s Email Protection capabilities complement Microsoft 365 native security to deliver defense-in-depth and block sophisticated email attacks.

“At Barracuda, we are committed to helping customers with the best defenses for complex and evolving threats. We’ve been investing in AI since 2017, and this enables us to block millions of additional threats every day. Our email protection solutions support both managed service providers and end-user customers, and we continue to innovate to ensure customers are equipped to combat threats such as business email compromise with unparalleled efficacy, ” said Neal Bradbury, Chief Product Officer, Barracuda.

Barracuda Email Protection harnesses AI models, continuously releasing new classifiers to prevent emerging and novel threats. Based on Barracuda’s analysis, Barracuda AI-enabled solutions block 99.2% of targeted phishing attacks without the need for manual configuration, conserving time and IT resources for customers and managed service providers.

Recent Barracuda Email Protection highlights

  • Customers: Barracuda currently serves tens of thousands of email security customers worldwide. These customers include Mansour Group, Multi Masters Group, Lombardi Group, Exotic Automation, Turlock Unified School District, The Borough of West Chester, and many more.
  • Mailboxes: Over 8 million Microsoft Office 365 mailboxes are monitored and protected by Barracuda Impersonation Protection, and an additional 1 million mailboxes are protected by over 5,000 Barracuda MSPs worldwide.
  • Growth: Barracuda’s Email Protection SaaS ARR grew 18% YoY in FY24, and Email Protection SaaS ARR for Barracuda MSP grew by 21% YoY in FY24.

Recent Barracuda Email Protection innovation highlights

1. Superior detection efficacy

  • Machine learning classifiers were introduced to Barracuda Email Gateway Defense to enhance its detection efficacy. The machine learning capability is trained using labeled datasets and continuously updated with new data to ensure it remains effective and adaptive to evolving threats. We now block an additional 2.3 million attacks every day with Barracuda Email Gateway Defense.
  • Further enhancements to machine learning classifiers resulted in a 150% increase in the number of detections of spoofing attacks.

2. Enhanced user experience and reporting

  • New real-time reporting capabilities in Barracuda Email Protection offer actionable threat intelligence to boost security. Insights allow customers to quickly understand threats targeting their organizations, tailor user security training, and establish a more proactive approach to security.

3. Secure, monitor, and mitigate data loss

  • Barracuda Data Inspector now includes an upgraded policy engine, custom classifiers using regular expressions (regex), and a redesigned redaction user interface (UI).
  • Users can now develop precise data handling rules, enhance the accuracy of data classification, and streamline the redaction process, ensuring improved data privacy and compliance management.
  • These enhancements help customers navigate the evolving landscape of data privacy regulations and the increasing complexity of their data environments.

  4. International expansion and data residency support

  • Barracuda is expanding its presence in India with the launch of Data Inspector and Barracuda Cloud Archiving to the AWS India Region, helping address the needs of India’s rapidly growing digital economy and evolving data privacy regulations.
  • By providing locally deployed cloud solutions, we enable our customers in India to comply with data residency requirements, while seizing significant business opportunities in a $6 billion cybersecurity market.

Recent Barracuda Email Protection industry recognition

  • Best Solution – Email Security and Management, 2024 Global InfoSec Awards
  • Best Web and Email Security, CyberSec Asia Readers’ Choice Awards
  • Best AI Email Security Vendor of the Year in 2023, Future Enterprise Awards
  • Barracuda Impersonation Protection, G2 Fall 2023 Leader
  • CRN Products of the Year Finalist 2023, Barracuda Email Protection
  • Best Security Solution for Email/Communications Systems, The Cloud Security Awards
  • Barracuda named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave ™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023

 

According to The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023, “Reference customers rave about Barracuda’s efficacy – especially against impersonation attempts – and built-in incident response capabilities, including SOAR for fast, intuitive investigation and remediation activities.”

 

Customer and partner quotes:

“I’m a Star Trek fan, and I like to think of our Barracuda security as being like the energy shields protecting the USS Enterprise. I honestly sleep better knowing that with Barracuda, our shields are up,” said Bill Mann, Chief Information Security Officer, Borough of West Chester.  (see case study: https://assets.barracuda.com/assets/docs/dms/CS_Borough-of-West-Chester_US.pdf)

“Having a single pane of glass to see and control everything, that’s priceless. Just yesterday, I had to find and pull 16 instances of a malicious email from 16 inboxes, and it took me a few minutes — on a Sunday morning, while I was out of the house,” said Robert Brogdon, Director of Technology Operations, Turlock Unified School District. (see case study: https://assets.barracuda.com/assets/docs/dms/CS_Turlock-Unified_US.pdf) )

“I’ve been using Barracuda Impersonation Protection for a while now, and I must say, it’s been an absolute game-changer for our organization’s cybersecurity,” said G2 user Ahid Z. (see review: https://www.g2.com/products/barracuda-impersonation-protection/reviews/barracuda-impersonation-protection-review-8422156)

“As our customers move from on-premises email to Microsoft 365, we bundle it with Barracuda’s products, including email gateway defense, Microsoft 365 data protection, and cloud security,” said Lou Ardolino, VP of Client Success at Vancord. “Barracuda’s offerings also support a monthly billable model, which makes it easier to sell and scale because customers only pay for the licenses they use.”

 

Resources:

Get more information about Barracuda Email Protection: https://www.barracuda.com/products/email-protection

Get The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2023: Barracuda named a leader in The Forrester Wave™

 

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About Barracuda  

At Barracuda we strive to make the world a safer place. We believe every business deserves access to cloud-first, enterprise-grade security solutions that are easy to buy, deploy, and use. We protect email, networks, data and applications with innovative solutions that grow and adapt with our customers’ journey. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide trust Barracuda to protect them — in ways they may not even know they are at risk — so they can focus on taking their business to the next level. For more information, visit barracuda.com.  

Barracuda Networks, Barracuda and the Barracuda Networks logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Barracuda Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.