Email Security Dubai

Email threats have grown significantly more sophisticated. Modern phishing is AI-generated, personalised, and indistinguishable from legitimate email to an untrained eye. The attacks that cost Dubai businesses the most money are not mass-spam campaigns but targeted, low-volume attacks designed to deceive specific individuals.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) prevents anyone from sending email that appears to come from your domain, a technique used in both BEC attacks and supplier-impersonation fraud. SPF (Sender Policy Framework) specifies which mail servers are authorised to send email from your domain. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a cryptographic signature that receiving servers verify. Together, these three DNS-based controls close the spoofing gap entirely when deployed correctly and set to enforcement policy (p=quarantine or p=reject). Most Dubai businesses have SPF configured but DMARC either absent or in p=none (monitoring-only) mode, which provides no protection. We deploy all three and move DMARC to enforcement.

The default anti-phishing in Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online Protection, included in all M365 plans) catches high-volume, known-bad spam but misses targeted, low-volume phishing, particularly BEC that contains no links or attachments, only social-engineering text. We layer Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 or Plan 2 (or equivalent third-party tools) to add: AI-powered impersonation detection that identifies when an email looks like it came from an executive but the sender address differs, Safe Links URL rewriting and sandboxing that checks links at click-time rather than delivery-time (catching links that are legitimate at delivery but redirected later), and Safe Attachments detonation in a cloud sandbox before delivery to the inbox.

Microsoft 365 ships with permissive defaults designed to minimise support tickets, not to maximise security. We harden M365 email security by configuring all controls that Microsoft leaves off by default.

Technology controls reduce the volume of phishing that reaches the inbox but cannot stop a determined, well-crafted attack. The final control is a trained human who recognises phishing and reports it rather than clicking. We run simulated phishing campaigns for Dubai businesses using realistic, current lures (Microsoft 365 password expiry, DHL delivery, DocuSign signature request). Staff who click receive immediate micro-training (30-second module) explaining what they should have noticed. Monthly campaigns with trend reporting show whether click-through rates are improving over time.