Your business likely relies heavily on email communication to survive. As your company shifts to performing more and more of the daily activities away from a physical location, you will need to have a reliable email service to ensure you’re always able to send and receive messages between your clients and your employees.
However, you need to go beyond simply selecting an email service provider. You also need to take advantage of in-depth email security systems. When you send and receive email messages, you are creating a digital paper trail. This can be helpful for your business and its record-keeping, but it also leaves your business susceptible to potential hacks and data thieves. Due to your strong reliance on your email address, you need to answer the question of what is email security.
What is Email Security and What Are The Different Kinds Of Email Threats?
There are several potential threats you will stumble into when it comes to your email. Some of these threats can be easily avoided as long as some common sense is practiced:
- For starters, don’t open emails if you don’t know the sender.
- Next, don’t click on any links within the emails or download any attachments unless you specifically know who is sending it to you. And even if you know who is sending you a message, make sure to scan the file for attached malware and other viruses ahead of time. The sender’s computer may be infected, and there might be a leached virus attached to the data they sent you.
- If you receive an email that looks authentic, such as one from Apple or Amazon, and it says your system has been hacked, or there is another issue with your service, and you need to follow a provided link, check the actual sender email address. Unless it comes from an official email account within the company, do not click on the message or link.
Pro-Tip: What if you are not sure? You can Google the email address to see if there are records of it being real or fake.
Is Email Encryption The Answer? (This is especially important in the medical and legal fields)
Unless you are using a random email password generator, a skilled hacker will likely be able to figure out your email password if they wanted to. Of course, with a password generator, it is challenging to remember the password, which means you’ll end up resetting your own password time and time again. This is why you need to rely on other forms of protection beyond having a quality password you can remember. Email encryption is one of the most critical steps you can take to protect the information within your email account. With email encryption, every message you send will be encrypted. This way, should an outside entity intercept the message, they will not be able to access the encrypted information.
There are several encryption options available. Some of these options will require you to encrypt the message before you send it personally. This can be helpful if you want only to encrypt certain messages. There is a downside to this, though. If you pick and choose the messages to be encrypted, would-be hackers will know which messages contain valuable information and which messages they can avoid. Instead, you may want to consider an email service that provides seamless encryption. This will encrypt the message when you click send. So, once you click the send button, the service will encrypt the file and then send it out. There is a fraction of a second delay with this, but the minuscule delay is well worth it when it comes to the overall security of your emails.
If you use a closed network and send messages within the network from one employee to the next, you may want to implement network encryption. This way, anyone outside the network is not able to read the information or access it. To know what will work best for your business, you will want to consult an IT security professional. Charlotte IT Solutions can help you with determining the best kind of email encryption security for your company requirements.
It Starts With Selecting The Most Secure Email Provider
As the information you send via email becomes more and more confidential, the heat gets turned up on the necessary protocols you need to take. If you work in the medical industry, you are already well aware of HIPAA requirements for client information protection. The requirements go a long way in protecting client information. Well, you don’t need to be in the medical community to take advantage of these kinds of security protocols.
By using a secure email service provider, you will instantly up the security every single email message receives when you send one out, or you receive an incoming message. However, unless you’re in the medical community, you may lack the insights into HIPAA requirements or other extreme forms of information security. Charlotte IT Solutions can help you with this. By aiding in meeting HIPAA requirements via a secure email service provider, you will take a significant step in protecting every bit of data that passes through your email address.
Protect Your Email And Your Clients With Proper Email Security Measures
Now that you have the answer to what is email security, you understand the importance of implementing email security measures. By taking advantage of these practices, you will protect not only your own business but your clients as well. It will prevent confidential information from getting out and from your customer’s financial data from leaking.
With just how vital your email account is, you need to take email security seriously. That is precisely why you need to bring in a professional service provider like Charlotte IT Solutions to make sure you’re doing everything you can to protect your business, your customers, and all your employees.
So, if you’re ready to take the next step in your company’s information security network, now is the time to reach out and contact the team at Charlotte IT Solutions.