CASE STUDY
compliance and to keep up with new types
of threats as they appear in the wild.
In a year when Peet’s team undertook
several large IT projects, he notes that
Mimecast is the project staff members stop
him in the hall to thank him for.
“Our staff have seen a huge decrease not
just in phishing emails, but also spam,” Peet
says. “They can now easily find things in their
email and are much more productive than
they were before. Mimecast has had a huge
impact on our daily work.”
Intelligent CIO spoke to Peet to find out
more about the solution.
Before the Mimecast solution was
implemented what sort of threats
were entering your network?
Virus attachments and phishing URL Links
were the two main categories, but there is a
long tail of other types.
What was the impact of these
attacks on the peace of mind
of staff?
Staff always had to be on high alert for
suspicious emails, which they needed to then
forward to IT.
This meant they were often fatigued due to
the overall volume of email and the diligence
with which they had to review their emails.
Do you know of any reason why you
suffered an increase in sophisticated
phishing attacks last year?
When we hosted events that resulted in
increased publicity and PR, we often saw a
spike in Incidents.
We had one incident (that was correctly
flagged to IT, by the recipient) that specifically
mentioned the recipient’s recent attendance
at a conference and the topic they spoke on. It
was from a customised domain.
This was a very sophisticated, one-to-
one attack, where the hacker used the
publicity from that conference to create
an authentic looking mail. This just goes
to show that criminals are continuing to
develop in their sophistication.
www.intelligentcio.com
ABOUT FICHTE & CO
Fichte & Co was launched in 2005 and
has become one of the UAE’s leading
law firms, with offices in both Dubai
and Abu Dhabi. The firm has won
many awards, particularly in the field of
maritime law.
Landmark cases include being the first
law firm to successfully enforce an
International Arbitration Award in the
UAE Courts under the NY Convention.
Fichte & Co regularly advises
international corporations on
commercial law issues and risk advisory
matters, including strategic advice on
business risks.
Its clients have included governmental
and quasi-governmental entities such
as Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
(ADNOC), Oman and Dubai Drydocks,
UAE Classification (TASNEEF) and the
Port of Fujairah.
Have you been impressed with how
the system keeps up with new types
of threats?
Yes. Mimecast claims to have a 100%
Protection SLA for Virus, and I can see
that effect. I have also noticed how they
constantly improve their spam filtering as
they learn your habits, in order to continually
reduce spam. This has removed a lot of
‘grey’ marketing emails. With their reports
on high level threats I am confident they are
on top of the latest CVE developments.
How has the system allowed staff to
become more productive?
Focus is vastly underestimated in today’s
work environment where staff are asked to
multi-task and clients expect fast responses.
Distractions with ‘sales’ emails, that are
split tested to improve their ability to catch
a person’s attention, need to be kept to a
minimum. In a competitive market, if your
business is a tertiary industry (where degree
education level is required), your staff have
to deliver a high level of diligence regarding
their tasks. And that includes your IT staff
who have to respond to these threats. They
need the environment to be able to respond
effectively when suspected high level threats
are reported.
Do you think enterprises
underestimate the threat posed
by emails?
Yes. There is an increased ability and
willingness to craft spear phishing and
whaling attacks. I still remain slightly in
awe of the live hack delivered by Mimecast
at their booth at GITEX, where they
demonstrated the simplicity of crafting
these sophisticated email attacks. I learnt
somewhere, that as humans we have
strong tendencies to overlook negative
outcomes and we can be slow to act when
high capacity work (mental or physical)
is required. We need to think carefully
about our internal biases and look to
continuously improve. Listen to your staff.
Go and see the issues they are reporting
and act.
Why did you decide to choose a
solution from Mimecast?
Support. Mimecast staff are able to quickly
understand any issues we report to them
and respond correctly the first time to most
of them and there is also the clarity of the
user console for our IT staff. It ensures
we can complete simple tasks quickly and
provides reports that demonstrate ROI.
When something in IT is working so well, it
often becomes invisible. Mimecast feels a bit
like an invisibility cloak, it is so effective. n
MIMECAST IS THE PROJECT
STAFF MEMBERS STOP HIM IN THE
HALL TO THANK HIM FOR.
INTELLIGENTCIO
63