E-mail and data security solutions company Mimecast has acquired eTorch (trading as MessageControl), a Chicago-based messaging security provider with solutions that use machine learning to prevent social engineering and human identity attacks.
According to Mimecast, the acquisition of MessageControl strengthens its strategy to improve cyber security at the e-mail perimeter, inside the organisation and beyond the perimeter.
The combination of Mimecast and MessageControl will provide customers using productivity apps, such as Microsoft 365, stronger protection against advanced phishing and impersonation attacks, the company says.
In addition, it was designed to prevent the inadvertent loss of sensitive and confidential data, while also serving as an additional sensor to enhance Mimecast’s threat intelligence.
The addition of MessageControl brings several key capabilities. Firstly, it introduces machine learning identification of anomalous behaviours. MessageControl’s graph technology is engineered to inspect email attributes and content and then apply machine learning to build a library of known and unknown patterns for an individual user. The technology is designed to get smarter over time and has the ability to make real-time decisions on 1 billion-plus unique user behaviour data points.
Next, it brings contextual, real-time warnings in e-mail – it empowers employees to help make better choices by providing them with more intelligent, contextual, and dynamic warnings of potentially untrusted senders or content into e-mails.
Finally, it has the ability to prevent misaddressed e-mail data leaks. Leveraging the graph technology, MessageControl is built to notify employees before they accidentally send information to the wrong recipients by using historical sending patterns to predict future anomalies.
Peter Bauer, CEO at Mimecast, says: “The first half of 2020 has been unlike anything we’ve experienced before. It’s becoming increasingly clear that better innovation is required to protect against the latest weaponised and unweaponised attacks.”
According to him, MessageControl is a natural fit with Mimecast’s suite of cyber resilience solutions – from e-mail and Web security through brand protection, security awareness training, and data protection.
“Its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities will offer additional layers of defence by evolving and ‘learning’ the customer environment and user behaviours over time," he says, adding that the acquisition will help evolve Mimecast's Email Security 3.0 strategy.
No financial details were disclosed, but Mimecast said the acquisition is not expected to have a material financial impact to its fiscal 2021 revenue or adjusted EBITDA.
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