The latest research from Egress, a cybersecurity provider, reveals that 34% of emails in a user's inbox are categorised as 'Graymail'. These emails, typically newsletters and similar unsolicited communications, are a staggering 12 times more likely to be misidentified as phishing emails, leading to an additional workload imposed on cybersecurity teams already grappling with their existing responsibilities.

Egress has responded to this issue by launching a highly accurate Graymail solution. This new offering is designed to lighten the workload of administrators who are often burdened with having to review large volumes of incorrectly flagged phishing emails. At the same time, the solution aims to enhance the productivity of employees by giving full end-user control over their email inboxes.

Groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities form the core of this new solution. Leveraging Egress's patented AI-based phishing detection functionality, which uses zero trust models and neural networks, the solution is adept at preventing behavioural-based threats. The enhanced function eliminates unnecessary distractions, thereby boosting productivity across the organisation.

Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress, commented on this new development: “Graymail is an increasing drain on everyone’s time throughout an organisation." Pepper further explained, "From individual users through to IT and Cyber teams, who are often functioning with extremely tight resources. The launch of our advanced graymail detection within Egress Defend will boost productivity and free up valuable time across the business."

The new feature, dubbed graymail, has been integrated with Egress' inbound threat detection product, Egress Defend, designed to work seamlessly within Microsoft 365 environments.

It is designed to help users distinguish between important emails and those classified as graymail, which may include promotional materials, notifications, and newsletters. Among executives, it is estimated that as much as 54% of their incoming emails fall into the graymail category. Of those identified as graymail, only 3% ever get opened.

This high volume of graymail means business-critical communications often get mixed up and lost within inboxes. Moreover, time that should be spent on more important responsibilities is spent on manually filtering less important emails. Furthermore, graymail emails are 12 times more likely to be incorrectly reported as phishing emails, adding to the burden of cybersecurity teams.

To counteract this drainage of resources, Egress has developed an advanced graymail detection technology that is formulated to individual users' preference, promoting optimal productivity.

The feature easily categorises graymail into separate folders, thus enabling priority emails to be more readily visible. The identified graymail messages then have interactive banners attached to enable easy re-categorization. Egress Defend learns user preferences over time, providing a more personalised experience, without any additional administrative overhead.

The CEO of Egress, Tony Pepper, reiterated his statements: “Graymail is an increasing drain on everyone’s time throughout an organisation. The launch of our advanced graymail detection within Egress Defend will boost productivity and free up valuable time across the business. We’re excited to put this release in our customers’ hands and increase the value we can offer to them.”

Egress's Graymail filtering functionality within Egress Defend is now available for users around the globe.