Topic starter
27/06/2026 1:55 pm
TL;DR: Gartner’s 2025 Magic Quadrant for Email Security cites sophisticated email-enabled social engineering and inconsistent detection efficacy, which supports using multiple vendors for comprehensive protection; according to Abnormal AI, the underlying problem is that identity, behavior, and context still need tighter governance to blunt account takeover and credential phishing.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Abnormal AI: “Abnormal AI Named a Leader for the Second Consecutive Year in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security”.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams evaluate email security controls against BEC and credential phishing?
A: They should test against realistic attack paths, not isolated product features.
Q: Why do email attacks require identity-aware detection instead of gateway filtering alone?
A: Because many attacks arrive through legitimate-looking mail and become dangerous only after the user or account acts on them.
Q: How do security teams decide whether to use multiple email security vendors?
A: Use multiple vendors when you need complementary visibility, not because of brand preference.
Practitioner guidance
- Correlate email telemetry with identity signals Join mailbox events, user behaviour baselines, and SaaS access logs so suspicious email activity is evaluated in identity context, not in isolation.
- Test coverage against BEC and account takeover paths Run the same simulated phishing, impersonation, and fraudulent payment scenarios across every email layer so you can see where each control actually observes the attack.
- Map post-delivery response to containment steps Define how mailbox quarantine, token revocation, and account review are triggered once an email-driven compromise is confirmed, and remove manual handoffs where possible.
Bottom line: Email security failures increasingly manifest as identity abuse, especially when attackers use legitimate-looking messages to trigger user action.
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This topic was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
27/06/2026 3:26 pm
Email security is now an identity governance problem, not a mail-filtering problem: The article’s central signal is that sophisticated email-enabled social engineering succeeds when identity and context are under-governed. That means the control plane has moved beyond the inbox to the account, the behaviour baseline, and the downstream application trail. Practitioners should treat email as an access path and not just a content channel.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should teams prioritise after an account takeover is suspected?
A: Teams should contain the compromised session, review connected email and application activity, and look for other accounts showing the same behavioural pattern. The goal is to stop continued trusted-account misuse before the attacker completes additional actions through the same workflows.
👉 Read our full editorial: Email security leaders still need multi-vendor defense against BEC
This post was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group