Publish date: 29.04.25

Phishing attacks have evolved beyond generic spam campaigns. Today’s adversaries employ multi-stage, socially engineered, and AI-assisted tactics to compromise identities, infiltrate infrastructure, and exfiltrate data — all while bypassing traditional perimeter defences. With over 90% of breaches originating via email, the need for an integrated, API-driven, and adaptive security architecture has never been more critical

Xeretec, through our partnership with Barracuda, offers a modular cybersecurity stack designed to harden your identity perimeter, secure collaboration surfaces, and empower rapid response to evolving threats. Below are nine technically actionable strategies to strengthen your phishing defence posture across Microsoft 365, endpoint fleets, and cloud-native environments.

1. Implement Behaviour-Based Email Threat Detection

The cornerstone of phishing defence is visibility — and Barracuda Email Protection delivers just that by combining AI-powered threat detection, signature-less analysis, and real-time threat intelligence. Instead of relying solely on static blocklists or heuristics, Barracuda uses machine learning models to analyse email metadata, header anomalies, language intent, and user interaction patterns to detect Business Email Compromise (BEC), zero-day payloads, and polymorphic phishing attacks.

Its API-based architecture integrates natively with Microsoft 365, scanning inbound, outbound, and internal mail flow without rerouting MX records. This allows for quick remediation (such as message quarantining and link rewriting) while maintaining high-availability, low-latency mail delivery.

Technical Note: By avoiding traditional MX record rerouting, you eliminate the risk of mail delivery disruption and simplify redundancy planning across hybrid environments.

2. Deploy Adaptive Security Awareness Training

Even with the best detection tools in place, human error remains the weakest link. Barracuda’s Security Awareness Training platform enhances end-user resilience by delivering dynamic, user-specific education campaigns.

Training simulations adapt based on click history, simulation success/failure, and department role, ensuring that the most vulnerable users receive more frequent and targeted training. The platform also supports automatic user provisioning via LDAP or Azure AD, enabling scalable rollout and granular role-based reporting for auditors or security managers.

Adaptive training not only boosts end-user confidence but also reduces false positives, easing pressure on the SOC and helpdesk teams.

3. Automate Detection of Account Takeover Events

Post-authentication attacks, such as account takeover (ATO) and internal phishing, can evade traditional perimeter filters entirely. Barracuda Account Takeover Protection uses behavioural analytics to monitor sign-in patterns, mailbox behaviours, and message flow anomalies, identifying compromised accounts often before abuse is reported.

It also flags OAuth abuse, such as malicious third-party app consents that grant attackers persistent access tokens without password theft. Once identified, compromised accounts can be auto quarantined and blocked from sending further internal or external communications.

Example: Detect low-volume phishing from a compromised HR user account targeting finance — a scenario often missed by static anomaly rules.

4. Enforce Domain-Based Email Authentication (DMARC, SPF, DKIM)

To prevent spoofing, domain impersonation, and email relay abuse, Barracuda Domain Fraud Protection simplifies the implementation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols. It visualises email traffic sources, identifies misconfigured third-party senders, and provides guided remediation to enforce sender authentication.

Once policies are validated, DMARC enforcement ensures that only authorised senders can use your domain — blocking lookalike or spoofed emails before they reach users.

Technical Benefit: Gain actionable telemetry via DMARC aggregate and forensic reports, enabling fast identification of shadow IT services or compromised vendors attempting to send as your domain.

5. Secure Cloud Collaboration Platforms

Phishing is no longer limited to email. Attackers increasingly pivot to Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint to distribute malware or credential harvesting links. Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup secures these collaboration environments with immutable backups, granular versioning, and point-in-time restoration.

This ensures that even if an attacker deletes or encrypts shared files, data can be quickly restored without dependency on native Microsoft retention policies — which may not be sufficient during targeted attacks.

Compliance Benefits: Meets GDPR, ISO 27001, and financial services retention policies, while also reducing RPO/RTO metrics in disaster recovery scenarios.

6. Enable Automated, Scalable Threat Remediation

Phishing incidents require fast containment. Barracuda Incident Response allows your SOC to search for, isolate, and remove malicious emails across all user mailboxes — retrospectively and at scale.

This includes correlation of indicators of compromise (IOCs), automated removal of matching messages, and push alerts to impacted users. Instead of relying on ticket-based remediation, your analysts can orchestrate full lifecycle response from one console, including remediation automation via pre-defined workflows.

For example, this could help enable a Tier 1 SOC analysts to execute remediations that would typically require Tier 2/3 involvement, drastically reducing MTTR (Mean Time to Respond).

7. Integrate Web Filtering for Link-Level Phishing Prevention

Modern phishing campaigns increasingly bypass email, using text messages, QR codes, and malicious browser pop-ups to lure users. Barracuda’s Web Security Gateway and CloudGen Firewall solutions offer DNS-layer filtering, SSL inspection, and real-time content categorisation to block access to known and emerging malicious domains.

Deployable as a cloud proxy, endpoint agent, or hybrid solution, this technology enforces protection for remote, mobile, and BYOD endpoints, ensuring consistent policy application across all access methods.

Implementation Tip: Integrates with identity providers and endpoint posture data, enabling context-aware access control for different user groups.

8. Apply Zero Trust Access Controls to Business Apps

Credential compromise is inevitable — but lateral movement doesn’t have to be. With Barracuda CloudGen Access, organisations can enforce Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) across critical business applications, replacing traditional VPN with per-session, user-aware, device-compliant access policies.

ZTNA evaluates device health, user context, and geolocation, dynamically granting or denying access based on policy — reducing the risk of compromised credentials enabling widespread access.

Integration Stack: Seamlessly connects to Azure AD, Okta, Intune, and Jamf, supporting both managed and unmanaged device control with full audit trails for compliance.

9. Continuously Monitor, Audit, and Tune

Static configurations cannot keep up with adaptive threat actors. Barracuda offers centralised dashboards, real-time analytics, and SIEM/XDR integrations that give security teams full visibility into phishing threats, incident response metrics, and user behaviour over time.

By ingesting telemetry into platforms like Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, or Arctic Wolf, you can correlate phishing data with wider endpoint, identity, and network telemetry — enabling faster root-cause analysis and holistic threat hunting.

Best Practice: Use historical click and simulation data to re-score user risk and auto-adjust training frequency or email quarantine thresholds dynamically.

Take the Next Steps

As AI-powered phishing, lateral movement, and social engineering tactics continue to evolve, Xeretec can help your organisation stay ahead with Barracuda Advanced Threat Protection. Whether you’re starting your Zero Trust journey or modernising legacy email security, our experts can design, deploy, and optimise a solution tailored to your environment. Xeretec help you close the phishing gap with integrated, intelligent, and automated cyber defence.

Contact us today to arrange a free threat assessment or Barracuda demo.