What Every Company Should Know About Email Security

Email security matters to every business because email carries so much sensitive information: contracts, invoices, customer data and passwords. This article covers the tactics attackers use, why email is less private than many people assume, and how to protect your company.

What is email security?

Email security covers the measures that stop email-based attacks, protect accounts from unauthorised access and keep the content of messages safe. Because businesses use email every day to share private employee and customer information, it is a frequent target.

You're not as safe as you think

An email account is only as secure as the measures around it. Most email services encrypt messages while they travel between servers, but they are not end-to-end encrypted by default, so messages can be exposed if an account, device or server is compromised.

Three common ways criminals steal information

1. Phishing

Attackers trick people into revealing sensitive information, either through fake websites that capture log-in details or by pressuring them to send data or payments to an attacker.

2. Spam

Spam floods inboxes, often from spoofed domains designed to slip past filters. One click on a convincing link can lead to a phishing site or malware.

3. Fraud and interception

Other threats include ransomware, malware, account takeover, business email compromise and interception of messages, for example on unsecured wireless networks.

It's time to upgrade your email security

The more employees, clients and customers you have, the more emails you send, and the greater your exposure. Practical steps include:

• Using a business email service with strong spam and malware filtering
• Turning on two-factor authentication for every account
• Setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC to stop spoofing of your domain
• Training staff to recognise phishing and fraud

Eujim Solutions helps clients secure their business email and runs security awareness training for their staff.

Conclusion

As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, a strong defence is the best protection. Talk to our cybersecurity team about securing your company's email.