Email Security: Are Your Emails Truly Secure?

       

Did you know that driving and sending emails requires nearly the same level of coordination? Most people would never comprehend comparing the two, that's because sending emails and driving have nothing in common. However, Silver Sky - a provider of cloud security has found stark similarities between the two. The study revealed that most drivers expressed overconfidence in their driving skills - believed their driving skills were better than their colleagues at work.
The result of the study showed that nearly 99 percent of individuals were confident in their overall driving ability. The same study also looked at how individuals and professionals in an organization perceived their email composing skills. The study results revealed that 98 percent of employees responded by expressing complete confidence in their email composing skills. 43 percent of the employees said that they go beyond set procedures to ensure the security and confidentiality of their email communications.

The study revealed that despite feeling confident behind the wheel and over email security, you are more likely to compromise the security and confidentiality of corporate communications - despite what you may think. The study revealed that nearly 76 percent of drivers eat & drink behind the wheel; 50 percent are likely to over speed or talk on mobile phones while driving; while shockingly, 25 percent would search for contacts in their mobile phones while driving.

So you may be wondering: how do these facts actually relate to email security? According to research, despite employees expressing full confidence in ensuring email security at the workplace, the facts from the study revealed that nearly 50 percent of employees' transmitted sensitive information such as social security numbers via email without encrypting them. Additionally, the 50 percent of employees actually sent sensitive information - without encryption - to the wrong person!

The study also revealed that in spite of rising incidents of identity and data theft, less than 50 percent of firms use data and email encryption technology.
Organizations can prevent losses and lawsuits by setting in place strong corporate policies, and by communicating those policies with their employees. To make sure employees follow through with data security policies, organizations should put in place and implement rewards and consequences enforced through their HR departments.
Moreover, certain corporate information is sometimes too sensitive to be stored on office laptops and desktops. However, most senior executives often need access such private data regularly, such as financial reports, HR related data, and corporate marketing secrets. Therefore, it becomes unpractical to store such data on encrypted cloud servers. Nonetheless, even under these circumstances, executives can Lock Folders in their original location containing such data without worrying about confidential data being hacked or stolen by fellow employees.