Prevent VIP Impersonation Attacks

An urgent email from your CEO can make anyone act before they think. Attackers know this, which is why VIP impersonation remains one of the most effective and damaging forms of attack. These socially-engineered threats bypass traditional email security tools because they don't rely on malware, but on deception. Material stops these attacks by understanding the context of your organization and spotting the subtle signs of impersonation that other systems miss.

Problem: Your security tools don't understand your org chart

Traditional email security gateways were built to find obvious threats like malware and malicious links. They are fundamentally blind to VIP impersonation attacks because these messages often appear benign from a technical standpoint.

This leaves your most important people exposed:

• Payload-less by design: The classic VIP attack contains no malicious attachments or URLs. It's a simple, text-based request for a wire transfer, gift cards, or sensitive data, giving content scanners nothing to condemn.
• Deceptively simple tactics: Attackers use tricks that are hard to spot, especially for a busy employee on a mobile device. They might use the CEO's real name as the display name on a generic freemail account (ceo.yourcompany@gmail.com) or register a lookalike domain (ceo@yourc0mpany.com).
• Lack of relational context: Your secure email gateway has no concept of your organizational structure. It doesn't know who your CEO is, who is on the finance team, or that a request for a wire transfer from a VIP's personal email account is a massive red flag.
• High impact: A single employee falling for a VIP impersonation can lead to immediate and significant financial loss. The attacks are aimed at employees with the authority to move money or access data, making the potential for damage incredibly high.

Solution: Use organizational context as a weapon

Material integrates deeply with your cloud workspace, allowing it to build a rich understanding of your organization's people, relationships, and communication patterns. This context allows Material to spot the subtle anomalies that are the hallmarks of a sophisticated impersonation attempt.

Here’s how Material solves the problem:

• Advanced impersonation detection: Material's detection engine is specifically tuned to spot impersonation tactics. It analyzes display names, flags suspicious sender domains (including lookalikes and freemail accounts), and identifies language that conveys unusual urgency or requests.
• Behavioral anomaly detection: The platform builds a baseline of what's normal. It knows the real email addresses, devices, and communication habits of your executives. When a message arrives that claims to be from your CFO but deviates from this established pattern, it's immediately flagged as a high-risk anomaly.
• Actionable, in-context warnings: Instead of just quarantining the message, Material can deliver it with a clear and unmissable warning banner at the top. This banner explains why the message is suspicious, empowering the user with the context they need to recognize the threat and report it.

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