Protect Against Ransomware | Ransomware Protection

Defend your organization with a superior ransomware protection solution

Ransomware protection is an essential piece of email security technology for organizations large and small. In a ransomware attack, hackers breach an organization’s security and restrict access to data or systems, requiring a ransom to be paid in order to release the restriction. Hackers will often start a ransomware attack through email, tricking users into clicking a malicious link or opening a weaponized attachment that propagates malware to a computer system.

Effective ransomware protection requires both ransomware detection technology and powerful backup and archiving solutions, providing access to archived email in the event of an attack. For organizations seeking superior ransomware protection, Mimecast’s cloud-based services provide an all-in-one solution to defend against this growing threat.

How Mimecast delivers ransomware protection

Breaking the Ransomware Attack Chain Early

A ransomware attack delivered via email typically unfolds in five stages: delivery, execution, propagation, encryption, and extortion. Mimecast interrupts this sequence before execution by layering AI-driven analysis, multi-stage link inspection, and advanced sandboxing at key choke points. Every inbound, outbound, and internal email is inspected in real time, with both static and dynamic analysis applied to links, files, and the message body.

Advanced Detection Across Every Email Interaction

Mimecast's inspection process for inbound, outbound, and internal email integrates multiple detection capabilities to identify and stop ransomware precursors. Detection starts with monitoring for risky phrases and semantic intent to understand the purpose of a message. Language patterns suggesting urgency, financial requests, or sensitive data collection trigger deeper inspection. Anomalous activity detection builds a social graph of user interactions to compare current sender–recipient relationships against historical norms. Deviations—such as a sudden request for wire transfer from an unestablished contact—raise the risk score.

Semantic and Behavioral Analysis at the Message Level

The behavioral indicators gathered during detection are combined with AI-powered verdicting, which merges real-time machine learning models with proven indicators from signatures and curated global threat feeds. Security teams can see exactly which risky characteristics led to the verdict—including sender reputation, domain anomalies, and unusual timing—before deciding on quarantine, rejection, or user warning.

Advanced Sandboxing and File Filtering

Attachments undergo AI-powered sandboxing that tests for decoys, anti-evasion techniques, and anti-exploit behaviors in a secure virtual environment. The system monitors for aggressive file actions—such as rapid encryption attempts or suspicious process launches—that signal ransomware execution. Robust file filtering policies prevent unknown or high-risk file types from being delivered at all, further reducing the attack surface.

Ransomware Containment and Account Compromise Prevention

If ransomware indicators are detected, Mimecast moves quickly to contain the threat across the email environment, halting delivery and isolating impacted messages. Protection extends to account compromise detection, which monitors for suspicious login activity or credential use that could be a ransomware precursor. By catching these anomalies early, Mimecast can block further spread before payload deployment.

Stop ransomware before it spreads—see how Mimecast gives you visibility, control, and advanced proactive ransomware protection. Protect your organization by identifying high-risk users and mitigating threats before they disrupt business.

Email Ransomware Containment and Recovery

Should an attack succeed through other vectors, Mimecast Enterprise Information Archiving provides:

Restore / RPO Metrics:Granular restore capabilities measured in minutes, not days, so you can meet aggressive recovery point objectives.

Continuity Mode:Immediate failover to cloud-based mail access during outages or lockouts.

Immutable Backups: Resilient, tamper-proof archives for incident investigation and recovery.

Rapid Recovery and Mailbox Restoration

In the event that ransomware encrypts or deletes mailbox data, Mimecast provides rapid remediation and restoration tools. Encrypted or missing messages can be quickly recovered from immutable, tamper-proof archives, supporting both operational continuity and incident forensics.

Reporting, Compliance, and Deployment Efficiency

Mimecast includes centralized reporting, analytics, and monitoring alerts across all email channels, giving administrators complete visibility into ransomware-related events. Built-in guidance helps organizations progress toward a DMARC reject policy, improving resilience against domain spoofing. Compliance features include legal-hold capabilities, regulatory-ready archives, and defensible chain-of-custody records for investigations.

Delivered as a 100% SaaS-based solution, Mimecast is quick to deploy and cost-effective. Organizations can opt for a fully managed service, receiving expert assistance during rollout and ongoing operational guidance.

Why This Approach Works

By combining semantic analysis, behavioral modeling, AI-powered verdicting, multi-stage link inspection, advanced sandboxing, and rapid recovery capabilities, Mimecast offers a defense-in-depth model that specifically addresses ransomware delivered via email. It not only blocks malicious content at the earliest stage but also ensures organizations can recover quickly, maintain compliance, and keep email available even during a targeted attack.

In addition to ransomware protection, organizations rely on Mimecast to defend against malware, spam, and targeted attacks like CEO fraud, spear phishing email threats and advanced persistent threats.

Explore Threat Protection Solutions

What is ransomware protection?

Ransomware protection refers to the security defenses and best practices that organizations can adopt to defend against ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a form of cybercrime where attackers secretly install software on a victim’s computer that can block access to the computer or the files and data that it contains, allowing users to regain access only after paying a ransom. Ransomware protection includes solutions for both preventing ransomware and for mitigating the effects of a successful attack. Because ransomware is most often spread through email-borne attacks, many ransomware protection solutions focus on strengthening email defenses.

What are the types of ransomware protection?

Solutions for ransomware protection include:

Anti-malware and anti-spam services that can identify and block known forms of email attacks such as phishing that are often used in ransomware attacks.
Anti-ransomware solutions that inspect email and web traffic for signs of malware-less attacks using impersonation and social engineering to dupe recipients into clicking a malicious link, visiting a malicious website or revealing login credentials that can lead to ransomware attack. These services provide strong ransomware protection against new and emerging types of attacks.
DNS authentication services that use SPF, DKIM and DMARC to identify potential sender spoofing which is often part of a ransomware attack.
Email scanning and filtering services that can block users from clicking a dangerous link or opening a weaponized attachment.
Security awareness training that can help users more successfully spot phishing email and know what to do when they encounter an attack.
Continuity solutions that provide users with continuous access to email and files during and after an attack, minimizing the impact of ransomware on productivity.
Two-factor authentication protocols that make it much harder for attackers to use stolen credentials to access networks and install ransomware.
Robust backup solutions that make it easy to recover data quickly after a successful attack.

What are the benefits of ransomware protection?

Ransomware protection solutions can help organizations to avoid the devastating impact of a ransomware attack. In addition to the data that may be irretrievably lost, a successful ransomware attack can easily create days or weeks of business disruption, significantly impeding productivity and damaging profitability and reputation. By implementing best practices and solutions for ransomware protection, organizations can better prevent ransomware attacks while minimizing the consequences of successful attacks.

How to recover when ransomware protection fails?

When measures for ransomware protection fail and an organization becomes victim to an attack, the first step is to prevent the ransomware from spreading by disconnecting infected computers from the network and from any shared storage. The attack should be reported to the FBI through a local field office, and to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). IT teams can then create a plan for recovering data either by using available tools and vendors that may be able to decrypt files, or by wiping computer drives clean and reinstalling data from a safe backup.

How to train employees in ransomware protection?

Human error is one of the leading contributors to ransomware attacks, making security awareness training a critical part of ransomware protection. Effective security awareness training can provide employees with knowledge and best practices that can help them to avoid opening suspicious email and attachments, clicking on malicious links or visiting dubious websites. This type of ransomware protection can also empower employees to double check before sharing sensitive information or taking other actions that may harm the organization or themselves.

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