Cisco Advanced Phishing Protection (AAP) is a solution that helps organizations protect against fraudulent senders and identity deception-based attacks, such as business email compromise (BEC) and spear phishing. AAP uses advanced machine learning techniques, real-time behavior analytics, relationship modeling, and telemetry to perform two main functions12:

It determines if the email messages are malicious by assessing the threat posture of the sender and the content of the message. It also validates the reputation and authenticity of the sender by checking various indicators, such as the domain, the IP address, the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, the display name, the reply-to address, and the header information. AAP assigns a risk score to each email message and provides a verdict of clean, malicious, or suspicious. It also adds a banner to the email message to inform the recipient of the risk level and the recommended action.

It does a real-time user web browsing behavior analysis by monitoring the user’s interaction with the email message and the links embedded in it. It tracks the user’s clicks, mouse movements, dwell time, and other indicators to detect any signs of hesitation, confusion, or curiosity. It also analyzes the destination URL of the links and compares it with the known malicious websites. If AAP detects any anomalous or risky behavior, it intervenes with a warning message or a redirect page to educate the user and prevent them from falling victim to the phishing attack. References := 1: Cisco’s Security Innovations to Protect the Endpoint and Email 2: Cisco Advanced Phishing Protection - Cisco Video Portal