Description

This curriculum spans the design, operation, and continuous improvement of email security controls across a SOC, comparable in scope to a multi-workshop program that integrates threat detection, incident response, compliance, and automation initiatives seen in mature enterprise environments.

Module 1: Threat Landscape and Attack Vectors in Email-Borne Threats

Select and integrate threat intelligence feeds focused on malicious domains and phishing indicators into SIEM correlation rules.
Map observed TTPs from phishing campaigns to MITRE ATT&CK techniques for consistent incident classification.
Configure email gateway logs to capture full message headers, sender authentication results (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and URL rewriting artifacts.
Evaluate the operational impact of polymorphic malware delivery via password-protected archives in email attachments.
Implement sandbox detonation workflows for suspicious email attachments with automated result ingestion into SOAR platforms.
Assess the risk of business email compromise (BEC) attacks lacking malware by designing detection rules based on behavioral anomalies.
Monitor for abuse of legitimate cloud services (e.g., SharePoint, Google Drive) as payload delivery mechanisms in email messages.
Develop playbooks for credential harvesting attempts that trigger alerts based on geolocation mismatches and impossible travel.

Module 2: Email Gateway Architecture and Integration

Design high-availability deployment for email security gateways using active-passive clustering with health check failover.
Integrate email gateway logs with enterprise SIEM using TLS-secured syslog with message integrity checks.
Configure SMTP TLS enforcement policies to prevent downgrade attacks in email relay paths.
Implement certificate pinning for outbound connections from gateways to upstream filtering services.
Balance content filtering performance against latency by tuning rule sets and disabling redundant scan engines.
Deploy DMARC aggregate report parsing tools to monitor domain spoofing attempts across third-party senders.
Isolate quarantine interfaces from general corporate networks using VLAN segmentation and strict firewall policies.
Validate DKIM signature verification across multiple domains and selectors in multi-tenant gateway environments.

Module 3: Detection Engineering for Email Threats

Write Sigma rules to detect suspicious email submission patterns such as high-volume internal relaying.
Develop correlation rules in SIEM to identify credential phishing by matching URL redirects to known take-down lists.
Implement anomaly detection for sender behavior using baseline models of volume, timing, and recipient patterns.
Configure thresholds for attachment entropy to flag potential encrypted malware payloads.
Enrich email events with passive DNS data to detect use of fast-flux domains in message bodies.
Build detection logic for display name spoofing by comparing “From” header with authenticated sender domains.
Test detection efficacy using red team emulated phishing campaigns with controlled payloads.
Optimize alert noise by tuning false positives from legitimate mass-mailing platforms using allowlisting with verification.

Module 4: Incident Response and Containment Procedures

Define criteria for email incident escalation, including automated SOAR playbook triggers based on IOC matches.
Execute mailbox search and message recall across Exchange Online and on-premises environments during active campaigns.
Preserve forensic artifacts such as full MIME content, URL redirection chains, and sandbox reports for chain of custody.
Coordinate with endpoint teams to correlate email-borne IOCs with EDR detections on recipient workstations.
Isolate compromised accounts using conditional access policies while preserving access for investigation.
Initiate password resets and MFA re-registration for affected users based on risk scoring from email exposure.
Document containment actions in incident tickets with timestamps for audit and post-incident review.
Validate remediation by verifying removal of malicious messages from all mailboxes, including archives and shared mailboxes.

Module 5: Identity and Access Controls in Email Systems

Enforce conditional access policies that block legacy authentication for Exchange Online to prevent credential abuse.
Implement mailbox auditing to detect unauthorized access or forwarding rule creation.
Configure least-privilege administrative roles for email gateway and Exchange management consoles.
Monitor for anomalous OAUTH app consents that could enable long-term email data exfiltration.
Rotate and manage API keys used by email security tools with automated credential rotation workflows.
Integrate identity provider logs with email security monitoring to correlate sign-in risks with message delivery.
Disable automatic forwarding rules in mailboxes to prevent data leakage via mail flow rules.
Enforce MFA for administrative access to email security appliances and cloud console interfaces.

Module 6: Data Loss Prevention and Content Inspection

Define DLP policies to detect and block outbound emails containing regulated data (e.g., SSN, credit card numbers).
Configure optical character recognition (OCR) in DLP engines to inspect scanned document attachments.
Implement contextual analysis in DLP rules to reduce false positives (e.g., excluding test environments).
Deploy exact data matching (EDM) for sensitive internal data types not covered by regular expressions.
Balance inspection depth against performance by scheduling full-content scans during off-peak hours.
Log and alert on repeated DLP policy violations by individual users for insider threat investigation.
Integrate DLP with encryption gateways to automatically encrypt messages flagged as containing sensitive content.
Review DLP rule efficacy quarterly using false positive/negative reports from user feedback and audits.

Module 7: Threat Intelligence and Hunting in Email Environments

Aggregate and normalize DMARC forensic reports (RUA/RUF) to identify unauthorized email sources.
Conduct proactive hunts for dormant phishing domains that recently began sending email to the organization.
Map observed malicious sender IPs to cloud infrastructure providers for abuse report submission.
Use historical email logs to trace lateral movement following initial compromise via spear phishing.
Correlate email threat data with dark web monitoring feeds to identify leaked credentials or targeted campaigns.
Develop hunting queries to detect use of homoglyph characters in sender addresses or subject lines.
Integrate STIX/TAXII feeds into threat intelligence platforms for automated email IOCs enrichment.
Measure dwell time between phishing email delivery and detection to refine hunting scope and tooling.

Module 8: Governance, Compliance, and Audit Readiness

Define email retention policies aligned with regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, FINRA).
Conduct quarterly access reviews for administrative privileges on email security infrastructure.
Document email security controls for inclusion in SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance audits.
Implement logging standards to ensure email gateway logs meet chain-of-evidence requirements.
Configure immutable logging for email audit trails using write-once storage or blockchain-backed solutions.
Perform annual validation of email encryption and digital signing mechanisms for legal admissibility.
Coordinate with legal and privacy teams on handling of encrypted or privileged emails during investigations.
Archive quarantine reports and incident logs to support regulatory inquiries and litigation holds.

Module 9: Automation and Orchestration in Email Security Operations

Develop SOAR playbooks to auto-quarantine messages matching high-confidence phishing IOCs.
Automate DMARC policy enforcement adjustments based on aggregate report analysis.
Integrate email gateway APIs with ticketing systems to create and update incidents without manual input.
Orchestrate user awareness training enrollment upon first-time phishing click detection.
Deploy automated false positive feedback loops from end users to update detection models.
Use automation to rotate and update blocklists across email gateways and DNS filtering services.
Trigger endpoint isolation via EDR APIs when email sandbox confirms malicious payload execution.
Measure automation efficacy using mean time to acknowledge (MTTA) and mean time to respond (MTTR) metrics.