The Barracuda tool scans Office 365 systems and identifies all malware on the system, including the mailboxes where it was found, and whether it was opened.
Chris Crellin, Senior Director, Product Management, Intronis MSP Solutions, at Barracuda
Today at the Microsoft Ignite event in Atlanta, Barracuda is announcing a new cloud-based service, the Barracuda Email Threat Scan for Office 365. It identifies threats which are already present in an organization’s Office 365 system, with granularity down to the specific mailboxes of the individuals who brought the malware in. The company sees this as a two-pronged weapon for partners, both for their own use, and as a powerful pitch to prospects.
“The Barracuda Email Threat Scanner [Barracuda ETS] shows all the malware that already exists in an Office 365 deployment,” said Chris Crellin, Senior Director, Product Management, Intronis MSP Solutions, at Barracuda. “It will scan all inboxes in an Office 365 deployment, and show all the malware in the system. Most people think that they are more protected against threats because they are in the cloud, but the scanner shows them they can be just as vulnerable there.”
The number of detections is typically high. Barracuda recently analyzed 20,000 Office 365 mailboxes and found that they contained an average of 125 Advanced Persistent Threats per account, with only 7 per cent of the accounts being completely malware-free.
While most people are familiar with online ‘tools’ which purport to show tons of malware on computers, even new ones just out of the box, the Barracuda scanner’s information is quite granular, in order to demonstrate its value.
“It has a really nice dashboard, which not only shows how many threats were on the system, but also shows the highest priority threats, and shows in whose inboxes the threats were found, and whether the email was opened or not,” Crellin said. “It is all very pointed, actionable information, and it contains recommendations on how to prevent these threats from happening again.”
The technology uses both signatures as well as additional tools to identity new types of malware.
“It opens up the attachments and various links in a sandbox and looks for anomalous behavior, using machine learning capabilities,” Crellin said. “Whatever happens in the sandbox doesn’t affect the email account.”
The tool is being offered for free for a limited time to Barracuda MSPs, authorized resellers, and customers.
“For partners this has several uses.” Crellin said. “It evaluates what’s in your inboxes now, and shows you what’s there today, so that you can evaluate your existing tools.”
Even more significant, Crellin suggested, was Barracuda ETS’s abilities as a lead generation tool.
“This is great for going to prospects and running it on their accounts, to show them what’s on their system, and let them make a strong pitch for managed security services,” he stated.
Barracuda is running free scans this week for Microsoft Ignite attendees at Booth #2445, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. A free scan is also available online at https://scan.barracudanetworks.com/signup — although you do need to register with Barracuda to use it.
