Protecting UAE Inboxes: How Microsoft Defender 365 Stops Arabic & English Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks have changed rapidly, and today they represent one of the most sophisticated areas of cybercrime. Simple spam filters, once considered sufficient protection, no longer work. Attackers use spoofing, impersonation of users and domains, and fake authentication protocols. These techniques allow you to bypass weak settings and get directly into mailboxes.

Modern Protection Pillars

Anti-phishing policies have become flexible and multi-layered. They include the mechanisms of impersonation protection, spoof intelligence and mailbox intelligence. You can protect up to 350 users and up to 50 domains, limiting the possibility of identity or corporate name substitution. At the same time, Mailbox intelligence takes into account familiar contacts in order to identify fake emails in situations where an attack looks too plausible. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC remain the basis of authentication. Failure of verification triggers different scenarios: p=quarantine or p=reject, after which the message gets into quarantine or is blocked completely. Spoof intelligence complements this chain, helping to identify suspicious senders, and the administrator can manually manage trusted domains.

Aggressiveness and Filtering Settings

The sensitivity of anti-phishing systems is regulated by four levels: Standard, Aggressive, More aggressive and Most aggressive. When the strictest mode is selected, even emails with a low degree of suspicion are blocked. The price of such protection is an increase in the number of false positives. Spam filtering is enhanced by the bulk email threshold and advanced spam filter parameters. These mechanisms help distinguish mass mailings from targeted attacks. Emails placed in quarantine can be stored for 15 to 30 days.

Automation and Intelligent Analysis

Safe Links and Safe Attachments act as dynamic barriers, blocking malicious links and verifying attachments. Threat Explorer and real-time detections help you track emails that have accidentally passed the filters. Machine learning and natural language processing take on a key role. These algorithms analyze text the way an expert would. Since April 2025, the new Language AI model has achieved 99.99% accuracy and blocks more than 1 million phishing emails daily. This effectiveness makes the risk of a successful attack minimal.

Practical Steps of Organizations

A monthly check via secure score allows you to identify weaknesses and improve system reliability. Multifactor authentication reduces the likelihood of compromised accounts. XDR technologies make it possible to react in real time, which is critically important: studies show that attackers move around the network in 72 minutes. Impersonation safety tips and first contact safety tips warn employees about suspicious senders. The administrator can choose actions: redirection, deletion, placement in quarantine or complete blocking. Companies that provide information security in Dubai also emphasize these layered steps as essential to building trust and compliance.. Protection today is based on reaction speed, depth of analysis, and the right combination of technologies.