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Why Is Email Security Crucial For Businesses?

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For businesses, the core functionality to excel is smooth and excellent communication internally and externally. In recent times, digital communication especially email messaging has taken a grasp of the modern corporate world due to its extreme convenience and time appropriateness.

Subsequently, email security has become much of a priority since all corporate communication is confidential and should be maintained with honor.

In this reference, the first thing an enterprise should do to secure its structural integrity is committing to a decent internet provider. As far as our research is concerned, Spectrum excels as a secure, high-speed, and commercial internet provider that resolves all your connectivity issues with guaranteed protection; you can find more details at https://www.localcabledeals.com/Spectrum/Packages.

This article is written in order to educate business owners and managers about email security and its importance.

What is Email Security?

Email security collectively refers to the anticipation, avoidance, detection, and reaction system that is used to protect an email framework. Email security consists of email systems, gateways, user behaviors, and various other supporting services, processes, and security measures.

It is a multilayered concept and combines a great deal of awareness, policies, and tools.

What are the main areas of Email Security?

Email security is characterized in five main areas:

Login security – works with your strong credentials for email accounts and services. Your emails should always be password-protected and the password should be a combination of alphanumeric characters and symbols. Furthermore, you should educate your employees to ensure password cycling which means that they should always use passwords that have not been used before ever.

Spam Filtering – email security is dependent on spam filtering. Spam filtering is a great way to maintain the security of your mailbox by keeping phishing emails out of the way. This feature scans the contents of your inbox and makes sure to segregate reliable and malicious emails.

Fraud Prevention – some cybercriminals pretend to be authority figures of a trusted third party like a financial organization to defraud you. Fraud prevention is an advanced-level email security measure that detects fraud using machine learning.

Email Encryption – this standard email security system makes sure to assign a private and public key to every user. As such, end-to-end encryption is created that jumbles up every communication in a way that no one can decipher except for those with the key.

Cybersecurity awareness – make sure that your team is well educated about the cybersecurity threats and practices to handle and share confidential information.

what are the most Common email security Threats?

Some of the most common email security threats are:

1. Phishing

Cybercriminals send emails impersonating legitimate and trustworthy authorities in order to take advantage of innocent people. Most phishing attacks require victims to share their PII like login details or credit card numbers. As per the reports shared by Wandera, a new phishing website is created every 20 seconds. Furthermore, Barracuda Networks state that a 667 percent rise has been observed in email phishing since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.

2. Spoofing

Email spoofing means that an attack email is sent from an email address that appears to be legitimate. The main objective of email spoofing is to trick the recipient into downloading an attachment or opening a link. In 2020, a US company lost 15 million USD after being involved in email fraud.

3. Malware

Malware includes an unauthorized malicious program projected to damage, communicate with, or gain unauthorized to a device. Malware software resides in the device without the target’s consent and can damage the device by deleting, or encrypting sensitive information. It can also be used to track user behavior for further damage. The most popular forms of malware are viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, and ransomware.

Why is Email security important?

In the modern corporate world, email security is of utmost significance. Here are few main reasons for its importance:

1. Phishing remains a wide-ranged threat

According to the Data Breach Investigations Report 2020 by Verizon, 25 percent of the data breaches conducted in 2020 were a result of phishing emails. It is one of the easiest and most popular methods of email fraud.

The aforementioned report also states that 60 percent of cybercriminals use phishing techniques to gain login access. 50 percent of them are interested in PII (personally identifiable information) as it can be used against individuals and the company in many ways.

2. Social engineering has become smarter

Even after so much awareness, people still fall for social engineering tactics. A 2018 study reported that in the process it sent phishing emails to 62,000 corporate users in six weeks. The results show that an employee is more likely to comply with the request of an email without verification if it instills more urgency and authority. A total of 24,758 corporate users clicked on the potential phishing link.

3. COVID-19 global pandemic played its part in email attacks

Since the coronavirus pandemic has started, the volume of phishing attacks on companies has increased. Netstar reports that email security incidents have risen by over 600 percent in some industries where workers were more likely to fall for coronavirus-related frauds.

4. Employees might just make a slip

Even if phishing is not on the table, sometimes employees do not realize how their slight actions can cost the company a lot. For example, a Boeing employee shared his work spreadsheet with his wife so she can have an idea of the template; the spreadsheet consisted of a PII of 36,000 employees. Unless you have trained the employees about cybersecurity, such slip-ups are very likely.

What can be done to avoid email attacks?

Companies need to realize the importance of email security and educate the workers about the crucial significance of these measures.

1. Run phishing tests regularly

There are various tools that can help you against innumerable phishing attacks. Furthermore, threats like spear-phishing that aim directly at a specific organization or employee can be downturned with regular phishing tests.

2. Use multifactor authentication

When it comes to login details, it is always better to use multifactor authentication. As such, if your email password is compromised, you can still save your account with the benefit of multifactor authentication.

3. Disable auto-forwarding

You must always disable the auto-forwarding option of your email so that cybercriminals cannot access your corporate address book.

4. Install a decent email security system

Employing an email security program can secure your emails and protect them from being disintegrated by third parties.

 

 

Kossi Adzo is the editor and author of Startup.info. He is software engineer. Innovation, Businesses and companies are his passion. He filled several patents in IT & Communication technologies. He manages the technical operations at Startup.info.

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