Email is still alive and strong as one of the most popular channels for business communication, both internal and external.
Whether you’re sharing something with your colleagues, clients, or customers, your email records are bound to contain some sensitive information. This information needs to be properly protected, as its exposure can have major legal, financial, and reputational consequences.
That’s why keeping email records safe and preventing them from being exposed to the public eye publicly is crucial for every business.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important email security practices you should implement to protect your business from common email security threats.
Educate your employees about phishing
Employee education is the most crucial part of email data security. To implement the best email security practices, you first need to ensure that everyone is familiar with risks and rules. After all, your security is only as strong as your weakest link.
When it comes to email security, one of the most important things you can teach your employees is how to avoid phishing scams. The reason why these scams work so well is that they rely on human manipulation and can be quite difficult to detect.
Unfortunately, only 3% of people are able to successfully detect phishing emails, according to an Intel Security study.
That’s why it’s crucial to raise awareness about these scams and train your employees to recognize and avoid them.
Make sure that every member of your organization is well informed by providing company-wide email security training and introducing your employees to common email security risks such as phishing. Don’t forget to also educate any new employees during orientation and create easily accessible employee handbooks your employees can use to freshen up their memory.
Implement strict password policies
Using strong passwords is one of the simplest, yet also one of the most overlooked ways of keeping your emails secure.
You would be surprised to see how many people actually still use the generic “password123”, which can be a major threat to security. Such passwords are far too common and easy to guess.
Unfortunately, many people simply don’t pay much attention to their passwords. Strong passwords are complicated and long, so they can be difficult to memorize.
You have to create a strong password policy and if necessary, use password management tools. Don’t let your employees use the company name, their name, or date of birth as their password. Password management tools can help them not only create stronger passwords but also memorize them.
Add a layer of security with two-factor authentication
For an extra layer of email security, you can (and should) implement two-factor authentication.
The first form of authentication is a password, but a password itself is often not enough. That’s why including the second step of authentication can save you from email security disasters.
By using security codes or security questions, even if someone gets ahold of employees’ passwords, they won’t be able to access their account without a code or an answer to the security question.
It might seem like an unnecessary step that only wastes time, but it can offer a valuable additional layer of protection.
Implement an email archiving solution
Many business emails contain sensitive information. These emails can’t simply be deleted, but must be retained for a certain period of time prescribed by a relevant regulatory body.
To keep this information safe, these email records should be encrypted and kept in a secure email archive. Implementing strong email archiving solutions will help you automatically archive and retain sensitive emails and keep them safe from security threats.
This will not only help you mitigate external but also internal threats. Once an email is archived, it can’t be altered or removed, which can protect you from intentional or unintentional edits of sensitive information or email data loss.
Ban personal use of company emails
When your employees utilize their company email addresses for personal use, they send and receive more emails. More emails also mean a greater risk of compromising sensitive company data.
That’s why you should prohibit the personal use of company emails and ensure that your employees are only using their company email for business purposes.
This will not only minimize the risk of phishing and other security threats but will also make your email servers less cluttered.
Make sure to filter spam emails
Another way to reduce clutter is to use strong spam filters. Spam emails will not only clutter your servers, but they can also be quite distracting and pose a big security risk.
That’s why it’s essential to use strong spam filters and keep them regularly updated in order to achieve the best results.
Over to you
These tips can serve as guiding principles as you navigate the complex world of email security. Keep in mind that data security isn’t something you can just set once and forget about it.
In the fast-changing digital world, there are always new threats to beware of and new solutions to look out for.
Follow these tips to help you keep your email data secure and avoid hefty fines, legal consequences, and reputational damage that can come as a result of email data breaches.