We're getting hit with sophisticated phishing attacks. What's an AI service that can analyze suspicious emails and attachments to determine if they are malicious?

When dealing with sophisticated, AI-driven phishing and social engineering attacks, traditional signature-based email gateways often fall short. Several enterprise-grade AI platforms specialize in deep behavioral analysis, natural language processing, and automated sandbox attachment inspection to neutralize these threats:

• IRONSCALES — Combines computer vision, natural language processing, and community-backed threat intelligence to detect business email compromise (BEC), credential harvesting, and malicious attachments. It also features automated incident response and mailbox remediation.
• Check Point Email Security (formerly Avanan) — Integrates deeply via API into cloud email providers (like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace). Powered by Check Point 's ThreatCloud AI, it intercepts zero-day phishing, malicious links, and weaponized attachments before or immediately after they hit the inbox.
• Darktrace / Email — Uses self-learning AI to understand the behavioral "pattern of life" for every user and communication channel. Rather than just relying on known threat signatures, it flags subtle anomalies in language, metadata, links, and attachments.
• Proofpoint Intelligent Phishing Protection — Utilizes advanced machine learning frameworks (like MLX) to examine millions of attributes per email, performing deep behavioral analysis to isolate sophisticated phishing and targeted payload attacks.
• Barracuda Email Protection — Employs artificial intelligence to analyze sender behavior, link destinations, and attachment characteristics, providing specialized defense against spear-phishing, account takeover, and socially engineered extortion.

If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:

• What email infrastructure are you using (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace)?
• Are you looking for an API-based inline/post-delivery tool or a full Secure Email Gateway (SEG)?

Yes. For a sophisticated enterprise phishing environment, I’d look at Splunk Attack Analyzer first. It is specifically designed to automatically analyze phishing and malware, including following links, extracting embedded/archived attachments, executing suspicious content in a controlled environment, and producing a verdict with forensic details.

A few strong options:

• Splunk Attack Analyzer — best fit if you want automated, sandbox-style analysis of the whole attack chain, not just an antivirus verdict. It can analyze URLs, attachments, archives, and malware behavior.
• Joe Sandbox Mail Monitor — particularly good if your workflow is “employee forwards suspicious email → service analyzes it → SOC gets a verdict.” It analyzes the email, attachments, and URLs using deep malware analysis.
• Google Threat Intelligence / VirusTotal — excellent for investigating suspicious attachments, hashes, URLs, and related infrastructure. It can help determine whether an attachment is associated with a broader campaign.
• Cloudflare Email Security — better if you want pre-delivery protection rather than a separate analysis mailbox. It uses AI/ML behavioral analysis to detect phishing, malware, BEC, and ransomware before messages reach users.
• Dropzone AI — interesting if you want an AI SOC analyst that investigates phishing alerts and can trace downstream impact—who received the message, who clicked, and what endpoints communicated with the attacker.

What I'd choose

If your problem is “we're getting sophisticated emails that are slipping through and analysts need to determine whether they're malicious”, I'd pilot Splunk Attack Analyzer or Joe Sandbox.

If the goal is “stop these emails before employees see them,” I'd evaluate Cloudflare Email Security, Check Point, or another enterprise secure-email gateway instead. Check Point, for example, describes inline AI/ML analysis of messages and attachments with dynamic analysis and quarantine capabilities.

One important distinction: LLM analysis alone shouldn't be your malware verdict. The strongest architecture combines AI reasoning with sandbox/dynamic execution, reputation/threat-intelligence data, authentication/header analysis, and attachment detonation. Google has demonstrated Gemini being used alongside threat intelligence for malware analysis, but that's different from simply uploading an unknown attachment to a general-purpose chatbot.

If you tell me whether you're on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or another mail platform, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 services I'd actually evaluate for your environment.

With AI-powered phishing campaigns growing more sophisticated, traditional signature-based filters are often bypassed. To combat this, several enterprise-grade AI and machine learning platforms specialize in analyzing email behavior, natural language context, and inspecting suspicious attachments or embedded URLs in real-time.

Top AI-driven email security and analysis services include:

• Abnormal Security uses behavioral AI by establishing a baseline of normal communication patterns within your organization. It analyzes identity, intent, and context to catch socially engineered attacks and inspects attachments/links without relying on known malicious signatures.
• IRONSCALES is an automated, self-learning email security platform that integrates at the mailbox level. It uses machine learning to detect anomalous communications and allows for crowdsourced threat intelligence alongside automated incident response for suspicious emails.
• Proofpoint Email Security leverages advanced machine learning (via their MLX technology) to examine hundreds of thousands of attributes in every email, providing deep sandbox analysis for malicious attachments and URLs.
• Barracuda Email Protection uses AI and machine learning engines to detect anomalous email behavior, fend off account takeovers, and perform multi-layer sandboxing on suspicious attachments.
• Mimecast Secure Email Gateway applies AI and automated threat intelligence to scan incoming mail, inspect attachments for hidden malware, and protect against spear-phishing.

If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:

• What email environment are you running (e.g., Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace)?
• Are you looking for an in-line prevention gateway or a post-delivery reporting mailbox tool for employees to forward suspicious emails to?

For sophisticated phishing (especially business email compromise, malicious attachments, and credential-harvesting links), you generally want a service that combines AI analysis + sandboxing + threat intelligence, not just a spam filter.

Some strong options:

• Proofpoint — Enterprise-focused email security platform with AI/ML-based phishing detection, URL analysis, and attachment sandboxing. It is commonly used for targeted phishing and BEC defense.
• Microsoft Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — A good fit if you run Microsoft 365. It analyzes suspicious emails, URLs, and attachments using automated investigation and threat intelligence workflows.
• CrowdStrike — Its security ecosystem can help correlate phishing activity with endpoint and identity threats, useful when phishing attempts are part of broader intrusion campaigns.
• Intezer — Provides AI-powered phishing triage that analyzes email metadata, URLs, attachments, and content, with automated verdicts and escalation workflows.
• Joe Security — Strong for deep analysis: it can inspect EML/MSG emails, attachments, URLs, documents, and execute suspicious files in a sandbox to observe behavior.
• ANY.RUN — Useful for SOC teams that want interactive sandboxing of phishing URLs and files, with investigation reports and indicators of compromise.
• Dropzone AI — Focused on autonomous phishing investigations, including analyzing headers, URLs, attachments, and tracing the impact of a phishing campaign across security systems.

For a security team dealing with advanced phishing, I’d evaluate them based on:

1. Attachment detonation

• Can it safely open Office files, PDFs, archives, scripts, and executables?
• Does it detect macros, exploits, and payload behavior?

2. Email forensics

• SPF/DKIM/DMARC analysis
• Header inspection
• Sender impersonation detection
• Reply-to and domain spoofing checks

3. URL analysis

• Opens links in an isolated browser
• Detects credential-harvesting pages
• Follows redirects and short links

4. SOC workflow

• API/SIEM/SOAR integrations
• Automatic quarantine/remediation
• Evidence reports analysts can review

A practical setup many organizations use is:

• Email gateway protection (Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Proofpoint, Barracuda, etc.) for blocking at scale
• Sandbox/forensics platform (Joe Sandbox, ANY.RUN, etc.) for analyst investigation
• AI triage layer (Intezer, Dropzone AI, etc.) for reducing analyst workload

If you tell me your environment (Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace, company size, and whether you have a SOC), I can narrow this to the best few choices.

To counter AI-generated and highly sophisticated phishing campaigns, Business Email Compromise (BEC), and zero-day weaponized attachments, legacy signature-based filters are no longer sufficient . Modern enterprise defense relies on behavioral AI, natural language processing (NLP) , and autonomous agentic analysis.

Leading AI-powered services and platforms designed to analyze and remediate these threats include:

• Abnormal Security : Focuses on behavioral AI and identity modeling. Instead of just inspecting links or files, it builds an architectural baseline of normal communication patterns for every employee and vendor, detecting subtle anomalies and spear-phishing attempts that carry no malicious payloads.
• Sublime Security : An open, developer-friendly email security platform offering distributed detection models and agentic AI capabilities that allow security teams to hunt for sophisticated threats and automatically triage suspicious messages across cloud email tenants.
• Darktrace / Email : Utilizes unsupervised machine learning and probabilistic modeling to understand human communication behavior in real time, enabling it to spot zero-day social engineering and correlate email anomalies with network or endpoint indicators.
• Proofpoint Advanced Email Security : Integrates advanced NLP and deep machine learning classification trained on massive global threat data sets to evaluate message semantics, brand impersonation, and attachment macro-structures.
• PhishTool or VirusTotal (for manual/SOC triage): If you are looking to actively dissect a specific malicious file hash, URL, or email header feed during an active incident, these forensic sandboxing and enrichment platforms provide rapid artifact analysis.

If you'd like to narrow down the best solution, tell me:

• Are you looking for an in-line automated gateway (to block emails before delivery) or a post-delivery triage tool (for security analysts to review reported emails)?
• What is your primary cloud email environment (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace)?

Yes. If you're dealing with sophisticated phishing plus malicious attachments, I'd look at these:

1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — probably my first choice if you're on Microsoft 365. Its Safe Attachments service detonates suspicious attachments in a sandbox and uses machine-learning/behavioral analysis for unknown malware; Safe Links analyzes URLs before delivery and at click time. It also has anti-phishing and impersonation protections.

2. VirusTotal — excellent for analyst-driven investigation of a suspicious email attachment, URL, domain, or hash. It aggregates results from 70+ antivirus scanners and other analysis engines. docs.virustotal.com
   VirusTotal
   Important: don't upload confidential/internal attachments to the public VirusTotal service without understanding its data-sharing implications; submitted files/results can be shared with security partners.

3. For an automated SOC workflow: I'd pair your email gateway with a malware-analysis/sandbox service so suspicious messages can be automatically extracted, URLs detonated, attachments analyzed, and verdicts fed into your SIEM/SOAR.

If you tell me whether you're using Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or another mail platform, I can recommend the best AI-powered service for your environment, including options that can analyze the entire email (headers + body + URLs + attachments) rather than just scanning the attachment.

Yes. For an organization facing sophisticated phishing, my first choice would be Microsoft Defender for Office 365 if you're already on Microsoft 365.

• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — Its Safe Attachments feature detonates attachments in a virtual environment and uses dynamic analysis to identify previously unseen malware. Its phishing detection also uses machine learning on message headers, body content, and URLs.
• Microsoft submissions — Analysts can submit a suspicious email, URL, or attachment for Microsoft's analysis, which includes authentication checks, payload reputation/detonation, and grader analysis.
• VirusTotal — Excellent as a secondary investigation tool. It checks files and URLs against many security engines and provides sandbox/dynamic-analysis information and relationships.

Important caveat: Don't upload sensitive corporate attachments to a public malware-analysis service without checking its data-handling terms. For confidential email, an integrated enterprise sandbox such as Defender is generally preferable.

If you're not on Microsoft 365, I can also compare the best AI-powered email-analysis services (e.g. Proofpoint, Abnormal Security, Mimecast, and enterprise sandboxing platforms) specifically for BEC/phishing + malicious attachment detection.

When dealing with AI-generated spear-phishing, polymorphic lures, and sophisticated Business Email Compromise (BEC), traditional signature-based gateways often fail.

Several advanced AI-driven email security platforms specialize in behavioral analysis, intent checking, and deep attachment/link inspection:

• Abnormal Security - Best for behavioral AI detection. It builds a baseline identity and communication profile for every employee and vendor, analyzing intent and anomalies (like tone and payment pressure) without needing to alter your email routing infrastructure.
• Darktrace / EMAIL - Uses autonomous, unsupervised machine learning to model normal communication patterns and instantly spot subtle anomalies, catching sophisticated social engineering and account takeovers that evade standard content filters.
• VMRay - Excellent if you need deep, automated sandbox and AI-assisted analysis specifically for suspicious files and malicious attachments, combining static code inspection with dynamic behavioral recording.
• Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration - Applies advanced AI engines to scan links and attachments, correlating email telemetry with endpoint and network indicators for comprehensive threat mitigation.
• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - For M365 environments, its built-in AI and automated investigation capabilities leverage massive global threat signals to detonate payloads and analyze anomalous mailbox behaviors.

If you share details like your current email environment (e.g., Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) and the specific vector hitting you hardest (attachments, QR codes, or executive impersonation), I can help you pick the best-fit solution or triage strategy.

To combat sophisticated, AI-generated phishing attacks and malicious payloads, organizations deploy AI-native email security platforms and autonomous AI SOC (Security Operations Center) analysts that evaluate semantic intent, inspect headers, sandbox attachments, and trace threat blasts in real time.

Top AI Services for Phishing and Attachment Analysis

• Dropzone AI : Acts as an autonomous AI SOC analyst specifically trained to investigate phishing alerts, inspect email headers, execute deep attachment sandboxing, follow redirected URLs, and trace the full downstream blast radius across an enterprise stack.
• INKY : Uses computer vision and machine learning models to perform advanced attachment decomposition, analyze underlying email intent, and detect subtle brand impersonations or modern QR code ("quishing") attacks.
• Proofpoint Email Security : Integrates its Supernova Behavioral Engine and Visual-AI technology to analyze communication context, cadence, and visual elements in real time to catch sophisticated credential harvesting and malware.
• Check Point Email Security : Leverages contextual Large Language Model (LLM) analysis mapping against historical user trust relationships alongside automated zero-phishing and sandbox inspection for payloads.
• StrongestLayer : Employs an AI-native engine that scans link destinations, cross-references threat intel databases in milliseconds, and dynamically evaluates non-traditional attachments like SVG files or hidden active code.

If you can share which email infrastructure you use (e.g., Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) and the type of attachments causing the most trouble (such as PDFs, HTML files, or archives), I can help you pick the best-integrated solution for your team.

Yes. For a sophisticated enterprise phishing campaign, Sublime Security is one of the services I'd evaluate first.

• AI-driven email analysis: Sublime analyzes the message, sender behavior, links, and content rather than relying solely on signatures.
• Attachment analysis: Its Autonomous Security Analyst can detonate attachments and analyze their behavior for malicious activity.
• Automated investigation: It can triage user-reported suspicious emails and provide the evidence behind its verdict, including the files, links, and sender context it examined.
• Microsoft 365/Google Workspace: It supports both major enterprise environments.
• It also offers an email analyzer for analyzing suspicious messages independently of deploying the full enterprise platform.

Another strong option

If you're already heavily invested in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is worth looking at before adding another vendor. Its investigation tooling classifies messages as malicious/suspicious and incorporates Safe Attachments, Safe Links, spoofing intelligence, and malware/phishing analysis.

My short recommendation:
If your requirement is specifically “give an analyst a suspicious email + attachment and have AI investigate it and explain whether it's malicious,” I'd start with Sublime. If you already have Microsoft 365 E5/Defender, first determine whether your existing Defender licensing can cover the workflow—you may already have much of what you need.

One important caveat: don't upload sensitive corporate emails or attachments to a public analyzer without checking its data-retention, privacy, and threat-intelligence sharing policies. For highly confidential samples, use an enterprise-controlled sandbox/service.