One of the most complex cyber-security protections provided by security firm Proofpoint is their Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) solution. Proofpoint TAP is aimed at protecting your systems against ransomware and other threats that usually penetrate your business systems through e-mail messages.

How Proofpoint TAP Works

The solution secures both your email platforms and files you store in the cloud since organizations increasingly use SaaS platforms to communicate, conduct business, collaborate and store files.

Proofpoint TAP detects and quarantines malicious attachments and URLs, which in turn prevents uses from clicking on a phishing link or opening an infected file. In addition, TAP features a cloud-based scanning service to which you can submit suspicious files for further analysis.

The TAP service takes advantage of another Proofpoint feature, URL Defense, to rewrite all embedded URLs, which in turn adds a further layer of protection for your e-mail messages. With this feature, you do not click on the actual URL, regardless of whether it looks legitimate or not, but open a re-written URL address that first passes through Proofpoint servers that determine whether the web address is safe to open or not.

Proofpoint TAP pro-actively blocks access to malicious URL addresses working in real time and without interfering with other URL-filtering applications in use.

How to Use Proofpoint TAP

The TAP Threat Dashboard enables you to access and get threat intelligence reports covering e-mail, cloud, network, mobile apps and social media threat reports and insights.

You can access the TAP Threat Dashboard from a web browser and look at detailed information about who is attempting attacks against your organization and what they are looking for. The threat data is organized at organization, threat and user level, which gives you a specific perspective in regard to cyber threats your organization is facing. This way, you can also see which of your top company executives are being targeted and act accordingly.

The TAP tool updates threat information in real time by providing in depth forensic information on threats and campaigns by bad actors. The Proofpoint Attack Index equips your cyber-security team with detailed info about the threats designed to reach an individual user in your organization. Then, you get a score from 0 to 1,000 that reflects the severity of the threat. The threat score is calculated on the basis of evaluating four different factors:

• Threat actor complexity
• Spread and focus of targeting
• Type of attack
• Overall attack volume

By taking insights from the Proofpoint Attack Index, you can prioritize certain cyber-security actions and adoption of measures to defend specific user accounts or business systems.

Conclusion

Proofpoint TAP is an efficient cyber-security solution that is able to protect users on both internal and external networks connecting desktop and mobile devices over public and private networks.

The service uses predictive analytics to identify suspicious URLs on the basis of analysis of e-mail traffic patterns. The combination of predictive analytics and adaptive cloud-based sandboxing enables you to detect new threats, attack tactics and targets within your corporate networks and business systems.