• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Small- and medium-sized businesses that are desperate to prevent email data loss have a new tool available: KnowBe4 Prevent. 

KnowBe4 had already offered Prevent Enterprises for larger brands. But it is now extending that protection to SMBs. 

The new AI-powered solution alerts employees right away when they are about to send emails and attachments to the wrong person, the company claims. It does this with “advanced machine learning and contextual understanding of user behavior to identify risky actions in real time and prevent a data breach before it occurs,” says Greg Kras, chief product officer at KnowBe4.

Why is this necessary? Because 60% of all data breaches involve the human element, KnowBe4 says, citing Verizon statistics.

The sheer volume of digital communications increases the likelihood that employees will send sensitive information to the wrong recipients, including incorrect files and confidential data. 

“Outbound email risk continues to be one of the most persistent and costly challenges an organization can face – one that requires smarter, more adaptive approaches to effectively address them,” Kras says.

KnowBe4 argues that traditional Data Loss Prevention offerings rely on inflexible static rules that lack visibility into what is being sent to whom.

According to KnowBe4, Prevent can prevent: 

• Misdirected emails to incorrect recipients, including those as sent by autocomplete 
• Unauthorized sharing of sensitive information
• Any replies to suspicious emails and newly registered domains
• Data exfiltration attempts by malicious insiders, compromised accounts or bad actors in general. 
• Misattached files, including those containing hidden data within attachments
• Unauthorized disclosure and breach of information barriers within the company

These capabilities do not seem to apply to mass commercial emails. But they could prevent errors in sales communications.

And whatever its size, a company can never be too careful.