However to Identify and Avoid Email Hacking in Your Business

I’ve seen a fair bit in this trade—began as a network admin, way back in ’93, just as businesses were beginning to understand how to actually utilize email properly. Since then, I’ve engaged with everything from dial-up networking to the Slammer worm to, more recently, assisting three banks in modernizing their zero-trust architecture. And in light of just returning from DefCon (the hardware hacking village this year was wild), I really care about email security right now.

For the most part, email hacking is one of the biggest threats to businesses and most organizations are blissfully unaware until it’s too late. Fraudulent credentials, phishing attacks, and malware-infested emails are common ways attackers gain access to networks and extract data. So let’s delve into how you can actually catch and prevent email breaches before they turn into full-fledged disasters.

Quick Take: Signs & Solutions

• Common signs: You see logins from strange locations, emails that you didn’t set up to get forwarded, unexpected password resets.
• How hackers take advantage: Phishing, stolen credentials, malware attachments
• Prevention methods: MFA, email filtering, employee training (and yes, stronger passwords).

Fortinet’s email security suite — generic spam filters will just not cut it anymore — inspired PJ Networks.

Common Signs of Email Hacking

Many businesses don’t know they’ve been hacked until they start to see real damage — account takeovers, financial fraud or sensitive emails leaked. But there are warning signs if you know where to look:

• Unusual login activity. 3 AM foreign IP logins? Yeah, that’s not normal. Check your email logs.
• Unapproved email forwarders. Hackers love to make rules that pass your emails through to another account without your ever knowing. Go check yours now—I’ll wait.
• Form CP: Spam e-mails forfaits d @ Interna. It typically indicates that an attacker has hijacked a real account.
• Unsolicited MFA challenges or password resets If you’re receiving “unusual login attempt” notifications, someone has your credentials (or at least your email).
• Your account sends your colleagues mysterious emails. “Hey boss, please process this payment urgently.” Classic Business Email Compromise (BEC) scam.

If any of these strike a cord, take action ASAP.

How Hackers Exploit Emails

Hackers aren’t sitting there, guessing your password one by one — they’re smarter than that. Here’s the way that they really do this:

1. Phishing Attacks
   • Phony “urgent” emails to convince employees to provide credentials
   • Typosquatting (e.g., yourbank-secure.com instead of yourbank.com)
   • “Hey, I’m the C.E.O., send me gift card codes” scams
2. Credential Stuffing
   • Using passwords from data breaches hackers purchase and test them on multiple sites
   • If your employees re-use passwords, attackers will enter
3. Malware Attachments
   • PDFs designed to look not out of place, Word docs with embedded malware
   • If it gets opened, attackers have an entry point into your network
4. Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
   • Certain attackers intercept email traffic in transit
   • Your emails aren’t encrypted so they are at risk

The worst part? You’d never know an attacker is reading your emails unless they did something.

Prevention Strategies

Okay, now that we’ve scared everybody, let’s discuss what does work when it comes to securing your email.

1. Use Strong Authentication
   • I’ve said this a thousand times — MFA is non-negotiable. Every email account in your business needs:
   • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
   • Strong, unique passwords (Password123 is not “secure if I change the 3 to a 4”)
   • Disabling legacy authentication mechanisms (IMAP and POP3 without MFA? Just turn it off.)
2. Advanced Email Filtering
   • You can’t get by with basic spam filtering. You need:
   • Filtering to stop phishing emails before they hit inboxes, guided by threat intelligence
   • Sandbox suspicious attachments
   • AI behavioral analytics (I know I give AI security tools a hard time, but this helps with detection)
3. Employee Training (Yes, Again)
   • Technical controls will only take you so far. Educate your team on the red flags of phishing emails. And not just once — make it a quarterly exercise.
   • Teach them to hover on links to see concrete URLs
   • Use real phishing emails that have landed in your inbox
   • Send simulated phishing attacks (I’ve had execs fail tests of these more than any group)
4. Encryption for Email Security
   • If your sector deals with sensitive information — finance, health care, legal — you require email encryption. Otherwise you’re essentially sending secret letters that are written in pencil for anyone to rub out and rewrite.
   • Secure outbound emails with sensitive information
   • Enforce encryption for all external connections with customers or suppliers
5. Regular Security Audits
   • The one people skip because it’s “too much work.” Hold quarterly reviews. Check for:
   • Disposable or inactive email accounts (attackers love these.)
   • Gaps in email security tools that have not been patched
   • Weak password policies (yes, we’re going there again)

Email Security Solutions by PJ Networks

I’ve deployed Fortinet’s email security solutions for many of our clients, particularly among financial institutions where security is paramount. Why?

• Market-leading phishing protection (yes, machine-learning-based threat detection actually works here)
• End-to-end encryption—never plaintext in-motion
• AI-based anomaly detection that detects compromised accounts (this one I believe)

We have done bank-grade deployments with this, and we have blocked thousands of phishing emails before they hit the inboxes at all. If your email security is run-of-the-mill spam filtering, you’re leaving doors wide open.

Conclusion

Email security is like Land Rover; it’s a mandatory use. And honestly? Most businesses are far too lenient about it. Phishing is not going away any time soon. Credential leaks aren’t going to stop. And if your employees are still using weak passwords and no MFA, you’re basically asking to get hacked.

Final Takeaways:

• Turn on MFA for all accounts. No exceptions.
• Turn on advanced email filtering. Spam protection by default isn’t sufficient.
• Train employees—repeatedly. Awareness reduces risk.
• Encrypt sensitive emails. Through a wormhole, either you’re exposing data.
• Perform regular security audits. Its never too late to find issues before hackers do.

If you’re here thinking, “Yeah, we should get on this email security thing,” — do it right away. Question Your Suppliers, Hackers Activate Hackers Security teams work 7, 8, or 10 hours a day. Stay ahead. Stay secure.

Need to assess your email protection?

Well PJ Networks has you covered. Let’s ensure your inbox isn’t the weakest link in your company.