About Egress
Egress, a KnowBe4 company, is a cloud email security provider that says it continuously assesses human risk and dynamically adapts policy controls, defending against advanced phishing attacks and outbound data breaches. Egress says it uses contextual machine learning and neural networks, with integration through a cloud-native API architecture. Egress says KnowBe4's acquisition of Egress created the largest AI-driven cybersecurity platform for managing human risk. KnowBe4 says it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Egress.
Defend is KnowBe4's inbound email security solution. Defend uses AI and natural language processing to map historical communication patterns and identify anomalies. Defend rewrites links and checks them at time of click, and Defend detects QR codes within email. Active and malicious code is automatically disabled from HTML message bodies and attachments. Sender policy verification lookup and validation are performed on every message for SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Defend filters graymail to a separate folder. Defend uses AI to automate inspection of user-reported phishing emails and remediate attacks across the enterprise.[7]
Defend performs time-of-click inspection to detect malicious URLs that are weaponized post-delivery. Phishing is one of the most common attack vectors for ransomware. Egress says 90% of ransomware starts with a phish and that Defend uses AI-powered analysis to stop malicious links and payloads.[8][9]
On the outbound side, security administrators can configure their risk appetite for data exfiltration and deploy KnowBe4 Prevent to block activity, warn users when they are about to contravene policy, or monitor user activity without end-user notification. Prevent uses AI technology to analyze recipients for signals that an address may be a personal account linked to the sender. Prevent analyzes attachments for sensitive content and verifies them against the intended recipients. Administrators can control and report on exfiltration incidents through an approve/reject workflow. Protect is secure, certified end-to-end email encryption, and Workspace is a way to collaborate and share securely. The Security Center is a single portal for risk analysis, reporting and incident triage, investigation and response for the KnowBe4 Cloud Email Security products Defend, Prevent and Protect, including a live threat feed.[7][10]
Defend integrates into Google Workspace and MS Outlook apps on Windows Desktop, Mac, iOS and Android. Defend operates after a SEG, Google or Microsoft 365 has performed analysis. KnowBe4 Cloud Email Security is integrated into Microsoft 365, including support for Mac and OWA users.[7][11]
KnowBe4 says attackers increasingly target attorneys and support staff, who have access to valuable client information. KnowBe4 also addresses financial services organizations, with email and human error as the focus. A customer quoted by KnowBe4 selected Defend and Prevent as added security layers in its Microsoft 365 environment.[12][13]
The KnowBe4 Platform provides attack simulation and training, email and collaboration security, and agent security powered by AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) and a proprietary Risk Score. KnowBe4 says more than 70,000 organizations worldwide trust it. KnowBe4, Inc gives its address as 33 N Garden Ave, Suite 1200, Clearwater, FL 33755. Vista Equity Partners took KnowBe4 private, and KnowBe4 raised $300 million in a round led by KKR.[7]
KnowBe4 states that all of its products are SSAE18 SOC 2 Type 2 certified and Cyber Essentials certified. KnowBe4 has been audited against the International Organization for Standardization 27001:2022 standard covering information security controls and the 42001:2023 standard covering AI management systems. KnowBe4 maintains compliance with the GDPR. KnowBe4 uses AWS and Azure for data encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES-GCM 256).[12][14]
Egress on the record