Summary: This document aims to give a basic understanding of what Mimecast is, and why it is important.

What is Mimecast?

Simply put, Mimecast is a security tool.

A bit more advanced of an explanation – Mimecast is a separate mail server that receives all mail from outside sources, does several things outlined below, and sends them on to our Office365 mail server.

1. It archives our email, it keeps every email it ever receives, so even when we delete a person’s Office365 account we can go and pull emails if needed.
2. It takes several security measures-
   1. It does an impersonation check – any outside email with a sender name that matches an OHS employee will have their email flagged and put in a hold for review.
   2. It scans attachments – any attachments suspected to be harmful will be flagged for review
   3. It replaces links to increase security – it will scan the link and change the url to create an extra step to increase your time to think before you follow the link.
   4. It provides secure messaging – emails flagged with sensitive data such as SSN, CCN, or BIN will be flagged and converted to secure messages that are kept on Mimecast with an expiration date.
3. It provides security awareness training – this is assigned by our Skills Trainers from the People & Culture department. All employees are required to complete this training.

Why is this important?

What it comes down to is cyber security is becoming a bigger issue every year. Attacks are getting more complex, trickier to detect, and have more severe repercussions.

A wrong click in an email can take an entire business offline for months, if you want an example of this google “Partnership HealthPlan hacked 2022”

We do everything we can on our end, but we want to give you more tools to help us keep our data safe and make you aware of what is coming through your mailbox.
 

Some definitions

Spam – This is unwanted email that is often advertising product or services, or they are trying to get you to follow links that can install malicious software. Often vague to get you to look at them.
Example headline “Time to renew?” or “This product will amaze you!”

Phishing – This is more malicious than spam and is looking for information or credentials. What differentiates this from Spear-Phishing is they are generalized emails sent to large groups of people.
Examples are emails with things like “Your password has expired please click this link to select a new password” or posing as a known business, like Amazon, tell you, “Your package has shipped” with a link that takes you to a fake login screen. They often look quite real but come at unexpected times.

Spear Phishing – This is a targeted attack using information about you or our company to inform how the sender is presenting themselves. These can come in the form of impersonating a superior, accountant, peer, or vendor. They are very tricky, often appear very real, but seem just a bit off. Pay attention and be on the lookout.  
Example:

• “Hey, sorry to do this in a rush, but could you wire money to Garbablargblarg Corporation for an org-wide training suite! Thanks! Bye! – Sharon Harmon”
• The sender address will be something like, [email protected] , but the name on the email header might read “Sharon Harmon” or “Debbie Rilling” or “Brian August.”
• They’re sneaky!  Pay attention to two things: the email address and the notice the email is from outside our organization.
   

Malware – Malware are harmful programs that run when documents are opened, or are downloaded when links are followed. You may not even know something happened, so it is very important to tell us if you believe you opened something or followed a link you don’t think was safe.

Crypto-Malware – Like Malware, but very specific. This works by encrypting every bit of data your account has access to and then prompting for some kind of payment to get the key for decrypting the data. This is very problematic and expensive. This is what we hope we never encounter. So, as Jean puts it, “Stay Frosty!”