SAN FRANSICSCO, CA: Mimecast, a provider of information technology and services, announces an e-mail security cloud service that protects customers from e-mail attacks such as CEO Fraud, Business e-mail compromise or whaling.

Mimecast’s new service, Impersonation Protect, will extend the capabilities of Mimecast’s Targeted Threat Protection. Targeted Threat Protection provides comprehensive email security protection against spear-phishing attacks with malicious links and weaponized attachments.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that whaling email scams were up 270 percent from January to August 2015. The FBI also states that business losses were $1.2 billion in little over two years and $800 million in the past six months.

Mimecast’s cloud-based email security services and the capabilities of Targeted Threat Protection include services such as:

Impersonation Protect

Impersonation protect introduces protection against whaling attacks and CEO Fraud. The whaling attacks usehighly targeted email attacks to trick key employees into making fraudulent wire transfers or into disclosing personal or corporate information through social engineering– an exploit relying on people's willingness to be helpful using techniques such as baiting, phishing, pretexting, scareware etc.– email spoofing and content spoofing. Impersonation Protect provides protection from these attacks.

URL Protect

 URL Protect incorporates protection against spear-phishing emails that include malicious Web links. This attack uses legitimate-looking emails and links to direct employees to spoofed or malicious websites that contain malware, or steal information like usernames or passwords for key Web services.

Attachment Protect

Attachment Protect comprises protection against weaponized attachments. These attacks use attachments within targeted emails containing malicious code which is activated by the employee when opened, leading to a keylogger, backdoor or ransomware attack.

“Email remains the attack vector of choice for cyber-criminals, and they are constantly evolving their tactics to bypass traditional email security defenses. Whaling attacks can be extremely difficult for employees and IT pros alike to spot and they need help to put an end to this multi-billion-dollar fraudulent activity,” says Peter Bauer, chief executive officer, Mimecast. “Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection already defends thousands of employees around the world. The new Impersonation Protect service will add another layer of critical security to protect against the threat from whaling or CEO fraud.”