If your email was hacked today what information would be at risk? Intellectual property? Names of investors? Customer data?

Email hacking is not new; there have been several companies who have made headlines in the past who have been involved in email hacks, such as Sony Pictures and Yahoo Mail. Although email is inherently insecure, it remains the most convenient method of communication between businesses. Email is familiar, and has become a great marketing tool for companies to reach their customers.

Instead of avoiding email, companies should use it safely. There are several steps companies can take to start securing their email communications.

Source: Radicati Group

5 Ways to Protect Your Email Communications

Backup: Hosting your communications in the cloud does not negate the need for backup and recovery. Emails and important documents are susceptible to corruption and risk being unrecoverable due to malicious attacks or even accidental deletion. In these cases, a business will need be able to access their communications as soon as possible. Having a backup solution within your email tenant like Secure IT – Mail will allow you to restore your emails.

Encrypt: All communication, whether via email or other means, should always be encrypted. Encryption ensures that no bad actors can intercept your emails while in transit. Furthermore, your emails should also be encrypted when it’s stored in your servers.

Enforce your policies: Company wide security policies set the standards for how you decide to protect your data and electronic correspondence. It’s important to have clear security guidelines that are accessible to all members of staff. These policies should review general security practices such as password use, using personal devices/accounts for work and access management. Employees should be aware of and regularly trained in these policies to ensure good security habits.

Use a VPN: Remote workers need to be wary of using their email on shared computers (such as those in libraries) or when connected to public WiFi. Workers can forget to log out of their accounts on shared computers and/or open themselves up to hackers when using unsecure WiFi connections. The best way to avoid these risks are to use a VPN. Using a VPN like our Secure IT – Firewall allows workers outside the office to securely connect to the corporate network.

Archive: Unlike back up, archiving is meant to hold your communications for long term retention so that they can be used for future reference. Typically, this data is old and no longer needed for everyday use but necessary for record keeping. Certain regulatory requirements like PIPEDA require records to be readily available in the event an audit. Our Store IT – Email Archiving solution provides 100% data preservation for a wide variety of email platforms. With Store IT – Email Archiving, your emails remain searchable and accessible in the cloud.