McBride Closes Email Security Gaps with Varonis Interceptor

McBride PLC is a global manufacturer of private-label household cleaning and personal care products, with operations across Europe and Asia-Pacific. Headquartered in the UK, the company operates in a complex global environment with roughly 3,000 users.

For Ian Warner, Group Head of IT Operations at McBride, the challenge wasn't a lack of security tools. The real challenge was keeping pace with how quickly email threats were changing. The company already relied on established security technologies across its environment, including a secure email gateway. But as AI made phishing campaigns and executive impersonation attacks more convincing, McBride wanted greater confidence that sophisticated threats weren't slipping through existing defenses.

CHALLENGE

Closing the Gap Between Traditional Email Security and Modern Threats

McBride's security team recognized that the attacks reaching employee inboxes were becoming more sophisticated, with attackers using multi-step techniques designed to evade traditional detection methods.

The company already relied on an established secure email gateway, but the IT team realized the threat landscape was evolving faster than existing email security technologies.

“We knew we had a bit of a gap where AI was advancing quicker than our existing email gateway partners were producing new functionality."

McBride was particularly concerned about multi-layered phishing attacks that hid malicious content behind attachments, embedded links, and redirect chains. While existing controls could inspect some of these paths, they lacked the depth needed to consistently uncover the full attack chain.

The team needed stronger visibility into suspicious messages and greater confidence that high-risk attacks weren't slipping through the cracks.

THE SOLUTION

Varonis Interceptor Provided McBride with:

• Rapid deployment and immediate time-to-value
• Detection of advanced phishing, BEC, and impersonation attacks
• Visibility into multi-stage attack chains
• Automated remediation of malicious messages
• Visibility into AI-driven phishing attacks

To close the growing detection gap, McBride launched a proof of concept with Varonis Interceptor. The evaluation was straightforward to deploy and quickly demonstrated value.

“We did a proof of concept, which was quite easy to spin up. It was live within minutes.”

What immediately stood out was Interceptor's ability to identify sophisticated phishing and impersonation attempts that were being missed. The platform could trace threats concealed behind attachments, embedded links, and multiple layers of redirection, helping the security team uncover malicious activity that could otherwise remain hidden.

Multi-layered, embedded threat detection was key. The other tools are not as effective in detecting threats embedded deep inside emails."

For McBride, the ability to investigate beyond the initial email and uncover the full attack path provided greater confidence that sophisticated threats were identified before they could reach users.

Stopping advanced threats from reaching users

Interceptor also enabled McBride to act against malicious emails that might otherwise have exposed users to risk. Beyond identifying phishing, impersonation, and other suspicious messages, Interceptor helped reduce user exposure by removing confirmed threats from user mailboxes, limiting the opportunity for malicious emails to reach users.

This additional layer of response helped McBride reduce exposure to sophisticated email threats while giving the team greater confidence that emerging attacks were being stopped before they could impact the business.

RESULTS

Following full deployment, McBride began seeing measurable evidence that Interceptor was uncovering threats that had bypassed existing detection methods.

The platform consistently identified malicious emails that were slipping past traditional email security controls and provided additional protection against business email compromise and impersonation-based attacks.

“We’re getting 50 to 75 more emails per month filtered via Interceptor than our traditional tool."

McBride has also observed a reduction in phishing and spam-related being reported to the service desk, helping reduce administrative burden while improving confidence in email security coverage.

Together, these benefits helped strengthen McBride's overall approach to email security, closing gaps in existing defenses while fitting seamlessly into its broader security strategy.

With Varonis Interceptor, McBride has:

• Detected malicious emails that bypassed existing gateway protections
• Improved protection against advanced BEC and impersonation attacks
• Increased confidence in defending against evolving AI-driven email attacks
• Reduced phishing and spam-related ticket volume
• Strengthened effectiveness of broader email security strategy