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Email security is something your business shouldn’t overlook. Phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, malware attacks and email spoofing are all forms of cybercrime involving emails that affect millions of companies every year. Such cyberattacks can lead to data theft, financial loss and reputation damage.
While most email services will have certain security measures in place to reduce hacking and fraud, these are not always enough to keep your company protected. Below are just a few ways in which you can keep your email communications more secure.
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Vital Email Security Tips for Your Business:
Protect Email Accounts with Strong Passwords
Start by ensuring that emails are protected with strong passwords. What makes a password strong? Ideally, a password should have at least 12 characters and a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.
The most secure passwords are completely random; however, these are also the hardest to remember. Using a password manager to generate passphrases and store them could prevent you from having to memorise such passwords.
Make sure that every account uses a different password and consider changing passwords periodically. Two-factor authentication could also help to protect your email accounts – this involves using a password and another form of verification such as biometrics or a one-time passcode sent to a phone number. Get into the habit of logging out of email accounts at the end of the working day when you no longer need to use them.
Educate Your Employees on Phishing Tactics
Phishing is when cybercriminals send emails posing as someone trusted (such as a supplier, a bank, a client or the government) in an attempt to steal sensitive information or extort money.
Most companies regularly get phishing emails sent to them. Some are obvious, while others can be very convincing. It’s important that you’re able to identify the signs of phishing and that you’re able to educate your employees how to detect these signs too.
Just what are some common signs of phishing? A few tell-tale signs include:
- Requests to reveal sensitive information
- Urgent/intimidating language designed to cause panic
- Generic greetings
- Bad grammar or spelling
- Unfamiliar email domain
- Too-good-to-be-true offers
Use Email Scanners to Check Links and Attachments
Cybercriminals sometimes use links and attachments in emails to spread malware. It’s important that you do not click on links or download attachments if you do not trust the sender.
Email scanning tools can be used to check emails before you open them and detect potential threats. They can then warn you not to click on links or attachments in emails that are deemed suspicious. Such tools could prevent you from infecting your system with malware.
Implement Email Authentication Protocols
As well as protecting yourself from cybercriminals posing as people you trust, it’s important to take steps to prevent cybercriminals from using your email domain and posing as you.
Email authentication protocols can help to control who is able to use your email domain, preventing cases of email spoofing. Examples of email authentication protocols include:
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework): This allows domain owners to specify which IP addresses are authorized to send emails on behalf of their domain. It is the most basic email authentication protocol that an organization can put in place.
- DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): This allows senders to digitally sign emails. This can add an extra layer of verification to help prevent email spoofing.
- DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance): This allows domain owners to receive reports whenever someone sends an email using their domain. Choosing to implement DMARC can help to flag up any unauthorized emails from your domain.
Consider implementing all of these protocols to maintain complete control over who uses your domain.
Report Suspicious Emails
Reporting suspicious emails is key to alerting email services of potentially malicious email addresses, so that they can be identified and blocked.
This can prevent other recipients from being targeted and potentially becoming victims. It also helps train email security services to identify patterns commonly found in suspicious emails in order to automatically flag up such emails in the future.
Most email services make it easy to report emails. You can also forward emails to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at spam@uce.gov or the FBIs Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) at IC3.gov.
Avoid Using Email Accounts on Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi is much more vulnerable than private Wi-Fi, because anyone can easily log on. Such Wi-Fi is common in hotels, airports, restaurants and other public places.
Cyberattacks known as man-in-the-middle attacks have been known to occur on public Wi-Fi – this is when a cybercriminal intercepts an email communication between two parties. This can lead to data being stolen.
It is possible to reduce the risk of such cyberattacks by using a VPN. This can encrypt your connection, making it much more difficult for a cybercriminal to get access to your personal information. That said, it is not foolproof, so you should still be careful using email accounts on public Wi-Fi.
Limit Access to Senior Email Accounts
It is likely that different email accounts within your business will receive different information. Senior email accounts may receive more sensitive information, which could be more dangerous if it leaks. It is important that you limit who has access to these accounts and that you don’t allow all staff members to access all email accounts.
Having separate password managers for senior and regular employees could ensure that you are not sharing log-in details for senior accounts with non-senior employees. If you run a small company with only a few employees, you may decide to just have one senior email address that only you can access. Just be wary that if you need to take absence, nobody else will have access to your emails during that time.
All in all, you need to find an account management system that works for you. This area of email security is often referred to as IAM (Identity and Access Management) and is something that could be worth reviewing periodically – especially when new employees join, employees leave or if employees are promoted.
Final Thoughts
Email security is a crucial aspect of business management in our competitive digital environment, safeguarding sensitive communications and minimizing the likelihood of data breaches. More than a technical fix, it establishes your email as a secure and dependable conduit crucial for your business’s daily operations.
As cyber threats become more advanced, the necessity for a strong email security framework becomes even more critical to uphold trust with your employees, partners and clients while maintaining operational integrity and productivity.
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