Barracuda unveils new email protection platform for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace users: All details

Barracuda has introduced a new email security platform designed for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace users, as organisations face an increasing number of AI-driven phishing and account-compromise attacks.

Called Barracuda Integrated Email Protection, the new Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) solution uses artificial intelligence to continuously monitor, detect and remediate threats across the entire attack lifecycle.

The platform is built on BarracudaONE and is designed for both single-tenant and multi-tenant environments. According to the company, the solution can analyse signals across email, identity, network, data, and application environments to identify threats, explain security decisions, and automatically respond to attacks, even after a malicious message has been delivered.“Email is no longer a human-centric communication platform; it’s an operational fabric where humans and AI interact, making it a much bigger target and amplifying the speed, scale and impact of attacks when threats go undetected,” said Rohit Ghai, Chief Executive Officer at Barracuda.

Barracuda integrated email protection: Key features

The platform includes several AI-powered capabilities to improve email security and incident response. One of the key features is agentic threat investigation and response, which allows AI agents to analyse threat activity, correlate signals across environments and perform automated message clawbacks and remediation actions.

Barracuda has also integrated its Bailey AI assistant into the platform. The assistant provides explanations for security decisions and combines verdicts from Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Barracuda into a single interface.Other features include a unified quarantine system that consolidates Microsoft-quarantined emails into Barracuda's platform and integrated reporting tools designed to show threats blocked before, during and after delivery.The company said the solution deploys via an API-based architecture and does not require changes to mail exchange records or major modifications to existing email workflows.The launch was accompanied by research from Barracuda showing how quickly modern phishing attacks can spiral. A simulated, multi-step, AI-driven attack found that one phishing email led to identity theft, multi-factor authentication (MFA) bypass, and endpoint compromise within minutes, the company’s Red Team simulation found.The research also found that one in seven compromised accounts is used to launch additional attacks, helping threat actors move laterally across systems and identities. Barracuda said these findings underscore the need for continuous monitoring and automated response capabilities as AI-assisted cyberattacks become more sophisticated.Commenting on the Indian cybersecurity landscape, Parag Khurana, Country Manager, India at Barracuda Networks, said: “AI-driven cyberattacks in India are moving faster than many security stacks can respond. Threat actors can now move from a personalised phishing lure to full account and endpoint compromise within minutes, often bypassing the legacy controls many organisations still rely on.Barracuda said the platform is powered by its Barracuda IQ engine and analyses approximately 1.5 billion URLs every day as part of its threat detection process.