SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Proofpoint, Inc., (NASDAQ:PFPT), a leading next-generation security and compliance company, today announced the industry's first unified social, mobile, web, and email fraud and phishing detection and protection solution to provide visibility and address threats outside of the traditional security infrastructure of companies. This growing arena of digital risks targets more than the employees of a company. Cybercriminals leverage a variety of channels, including fraudulent social accounts, fraudulent mobile apps, and fraudulent email domains for both consumer and business email compromise (BEC) phishing. Leveraging shared risk visibility across Proofpoint's Nexus threat intelligence platform, Proofpoint Digital Risk Defense protects organizations from cybercriminals exploiting the company brand to fraudulently phish their customers, partners and vendors.

Social media phishing attacks alone were up 500 percent over the course of 2016¹, highlighting that cybercriminals have modernized their techniques in order to take advantage of the gap between the adoption of digital technology and the adoption of effective security controls. Legacy protection technologies and approaches are not designed to cover the key digital channels of social, mobile, email, and web and lack the modern detection capabilities and cross-channel context to keep up with the attacks, which creates greater risk for companies expanding their digital footprint.

"Without comprehensively and persistently monitoring risk in digital channels, companies remain susceptible to a wide variety of brand, cyber, and physical risk events," wrote Forrester Research analyst, Nick Hayes in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Risk Monitoring, Q3 2016. Later in the same report, he wrote: "Proofpoint stands above the rest of the pack with its strong portfolio of patents related to digital risk monitoring, including capabilities to automatically lock down brand-owned social media accounts when malicious activity is detected."

Proofpoint is delivering an omnichannel digital risk suite to combat this new wave of digital fraud and phishing to provide unique coverage for modern digital risks, such as:

• Angler Phishing on social media customer care accounts
• Social engineering and visual spoofing in fraudulent web domains, social accounts, and emails making fakes appear as the genuine brand
• Fraudulent web domains in social and email phishing campaigns
• Fake branded mobile apps designed for phishing brand customers

"Strategic mitigation and response for phishing and brand exploitation need to be incorporated into every organization's cybersecurity plan," said Devin Redmond, general manager and vice president of Digital Risk & Compliance Solutions for Proofpoint. "Proofpoint Digital Risk Defense is the only unified social, mobile, web, and email fraud and phishing detection and protection solution that looks beyond the traditional communication perimeter and addresses the growing danger of digital risks in real time across all of the primary customer engagement channels. Our unified visibility into active digital consumer phishing campaigns across email, social, mobile, and the web, combined with our patented protection capabilities allows organizations to confidentially engage customers and partners digitally while helping reduce their risk."

In addition to more complete visibility, context, and coverage, Proofpoint brings patented and patent-pending capabilities for assessing and remediating risks in real time on or from social accounts, mobile apps, phishing emails, web domains, and websites delivering this unified coverage and product suite with the following modules:

Additional functionality includes deep visibility, reporting and ecosystem intelligence sharing:

(1) Q4 2016 Threat Summary and Year in Review, February 7, 2017

Proofpoint is a trademark or registered trademark of Proofpoint, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT:					
Kristy Campbell
Proofpoint, Inc.
(408) 517-4710 
[email protected]