In this Article

Overview
The Problem Integrated Cloud Email Security Solves
How Integrated Cloud Email Security is Different
Key Integrated Cloud Email Security Concepts
Common Questions

Overview

Integrated Cloud Email Security is an industry category defined as email security products that connect directly to a cloud email platform, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, through APIs, and supplement the platform's built-in protection rather than replacing it.

Huntress Email Security is an Integrated Cloud Email Security product.

The Problem Integrated Cloud Email Security Solves

For two decades, email security meant a Secure Email Gateway (SEG), a service you put in front of your mail server by pointing your MX record at it. Every message passed through the gateway, got scanned, and was either blocked or delivered.

That model has three structural gaps:

• It only sees inbound mail from the internet. Once a message is delivered, the gateway is done. It can't see mail sent between two of your own employees, so a compromised internal account can phish the rest of the company unimpeded.

• It makes a one-time decision at delivery. A link that is harmless when scanned and weaponized an hour later gets a free pass. Attackers deliberately exploit this.

• It looks for known-bad artifacts. Business Email Compromise (BEC) and payroll-diversion attacks contain no malware, no attachment, and no malicious link, just a plausible-sounding message from a lookalike address. There is nothing for a signature to match.
   

Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace have built strong native filtering, which means a SEG increasingly duplicates work the platforms already do while still missing the attacks that actually succeed.

How Integrated Cloud Email Security Is Different

Key Integrated Cloud Email Security Concepts

• API-based connection: Integrated Cloud Email Security authenticates to your tenant with delegated permissions and reads mail through the provider's API. Because it is not part of the delivery path, an Integrated Cloud Email Security outage does not prevent mail from being delivered.

• Post-delivery remediation: Rather than blocking a message before it arrives, Integrated Cloud Email Security removes it after the fact, usually within seconds to minutes. This also means it can act on messages that were already delivered days ago, which is how retroactive campaign cleanup works.

• Behavioral baselining: Integrated Cloud Email Security learns who typically emails whom, from which domains and infrastructure, and at what tone and cadence. A wire transfer request from a "CFO" address that has never communicated with the recipient before is anomalous, even when all technical checks pass.

• Coexistence: Integrated Cloud Email Security is designed to run alongside native platform protection and, where it exists, an incumbent gateway. You do not have to remove anything to deploy it. Many organizations run Integrated Cloud Email Security in parallel with a SEG to quantify what the SEG is missing before deciding whether to retire it.

Common Questions

Does this mean messages reach the inbox before being caught?

Usually yes, briefly. The message is delivered by the platform, analyzed, and removed. In practice, this window is very short, and it is a deliberate tradeoff: it buys full internal visibility, retroactive remediation, and no mail flow risk.

What if I already have Microsoft Defender for Office 365 / Google's filtering?

Integrated Cloud Email Security is designed to layer on top of it, not replace it. The platform's native filtering handles the high volume of commodity spam and known malware; Integrated Cloud Email Security catches the targeted attacks that get through.

Can we drop our existing Secure Email Gateway?

Many organizations do, but that is a decision to make after you have data. Run both in parallel, review what Huntress Email Security flags as allowed by the gateway, and decide from there.