Mimecast has acquired Ataata. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
Research by Mimecast and Vanson Bourne in May 2018 highlighted the extent to which humans are the targeted weakness in cybersecurity. From a pool of 800 IT decision makers and C-level executives, 94% had witnessed untargeted phishing attacks, 92% had witnessed spear-phishing attacks, 87% had witnessed financially-based email impersonation attacks (BEC), and 40% had seen an increase in trusted third-party impersonation attacks.
Despite this, only 11% of the respondents claimed to use continuous staff training to help employees detect and respond to such email attacks. “Cybersecurity awareness training has traditionally been viewed as a check the box action for compliance purposes, boring videos with PhDs rambling about security or even less than effective gamification which just doesn’t work,” commented Bauer.
“As cyberattacks continue to find new ways to bypass traditional threat detection methods, it’s essential to educate your employees in a way that changes behavior,” he continued. “According to a report from Gartner, the security awareness computer-based training market will grow to more than $1.1 billion by year-end 2020. The powerful combination of Mimecast’s cyber resilience for email capabilities paired with Ataata’s employee training and risk scoring will help customers enhance their cyber resilience efforts.”
Human error is involved in the majority of all security breaches, and casual mistakes can cost organizations money, their reputation and employees, potentially their job. “Organizations need to understand that employees are their last line of defense,” says Madon. “Cybersecurity training and awareness doesn’t need to be difficult or boring. Training and awareness is needed to help mitigate these internal risks. Our customers rely on engaging content at the human level, which helps to change behavior at the employee-level. We’re excited to join forces with Mimecast to help customers build a stronger cyber resilience strategy that includes robust content, risk scoring and real-world attack simulation going way beyond basic security awareness capabilities”he added.
Both firms will be working to integrate the products to create the most advanced, sophisticated and effective cyber awareness training product on the market.Over time, the two platforms will become more tightly integrated, but he offering is immediately relevant and valuable to all of Mimecast’s target audiences.”says Mimecast .
