Is Your Business Email Secure, and Who Is Able to Read Your Messages?
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhich type of business conversations are more at risk—email or instant messaging? Bosses and hackers alike can get access to both.
Email has quickly become a preferred method of workplace communication. It’s often much faster to send an email than pick up the phone or walk to someone’s office for an in-person conversation. But, without knowing it, people may be compromising their security by prizing that convenience.
Is Your Email Secure?
The problem is email is only a partially secure form of communication. Security has gotten stronger over the years and many organizations utilize dedicated tools to improve safety even more. However, hackers have adopted more sophisticated methods, too.
Plus, you might know from experience how easy it is to send emails to the wrong person. Research published in 2022 by Tessian found 40% of employees admitted to making that error. Additionally, 29% said their companies lost customers or clients because of it.
Cybercriminals have increasingly advanced methods of hacking into emails. Consider a threat identified by Google that lets malicious parties download the entire contents of a targeted person’s email.
An IBM Security X-Force report also mentioned a trend where hackers use compromised email credentials to reply to ongoing threads, posing as the genuine account user. Researchers saw a 100% increase in monthly attempts compared to 2021’s data.
Are Instant Messaging Platforms Any Better?
Many of today’s workplaces also use tools with built-in instant messaging. Unfortunately, hackers can exploit those, too. However, people regularly use such tools to send confidential information.
Microsoft Teams has an instant messaging tool. However, a 2022 study from Hornetsecurity found 51% of respondents said they often send business-critical content on the platform. Then, 45% said they’d distributed confidential and sensitive information through Teams. Another worrisome takeaway was that 48% of those polled accidentally sent Teams messages to others.
Who Can See Your Messages?
Remember that your company may also screen employee conversations through email or instant messaging platforms. The Washington Post recently covered email and messaging channel privacy, bringing up how Twitter CEO Elon Musk shared a screenshot of an employee’s Slack channel communications on Twitter. The content explained how many company leaders have some oversight regarding company communications.
Musk’s example reminds people of how easy it is for anyone to publish evidence of emails or chat threads, too. Kansas City, Missouri media outlet KCTV published an email in which an Olive Garden manager got overly harsh towards employees who called out from work.
The sender complained that if people were sick, had deaths in the family, or faced other emergencies, they must prove it, and employees should look for other jobs if scheduling matters upset them. However, a corporate representative for the restaurant chain learned of the email and fired the manager because of its content.
Moreover, phishing attacks and other email scams are rampant problems. A SlashNext report recorded more than 250 million phishing attacks in 2022. That was a 61% increase over the previous year’s figures.
How to Identify a Scammer
The good news is most scam emails have telltale signs that could tip you off. First, look for generic greetings rather than mentions of your name. Hackers use those because they can send bogus emails to more targets. Check for grammatical and spelling mistakes, too.
Hackers love to capitalize on urgency in phishing emails, too. They may warn you’ll miss a parcel delivery, get your next paycheck late, or even face legal troubles by not responding promptly to the message. Usually, it asks you to ‘confirm your information,’ which is how hackers get the email they need.
Phishing emails often promise free things or claim recipients won prizes. Cybercriminals know most people love getting stuff without paying for it and base their schemes on that concept.
Major email providers have spam filters. However, they can break, as Outlook’s apparently did recently. That’s why it’s best to know some of the most frequently seen characteristics of scammers and their emails.
If in doubt, the best option is to confirm the validity of the email through other channels. Say you got an email from DHL about an unexpected parcel delivery. Contacting DHL and providing as many details as possible about the message will help get to the bottom of things.
How to Secure Your Email From Hackers
These risks necessitate taking proactive steps to stop hackers from accessing your emails. Here are some practical tips.
Set Strong and Unique Passwords
A good starting point is to always choose strong passwords for all your email accounts and never use the same ones for multiple accounts. Doing that makes it harder for hackers to access your email and limits their reach if they succeed.
It’s even better if you can enable multifactor authentication. You then need more than a password to access the email, creating another hacking barrier.
Learn How to Encrypt Email and Files
As a Box information security blog post explains, encryption uses complex algorithms to scramble data, making it useless to those without the decryption key. File encryption software also provides layers of protection, making it harder for hackers to succeed.
Microsoft and Google are well-known email service providers with built-in encryption technology, though the process for enabling it varies by company. Mailfence, Tutanota, and Proton Mail specialize in email encryption by default.
Another possibility is to keep all private content in files you encrypt before sending. Consider trying one of the many free online tools that allow quick encryption of any file you upload.
Never Expect Email Security and Privacy
Company leaders often reserve the right to oversee email-related activities. Some popular products even have tools that facilitate doing that. Coverage from Privacy International explored how specific settings allow Microsoft 365 administrators to read users’ emails, Teams messages, and documents.
Features also reveal individual metrics, such as how many messages someone exchanged or which device they used when engaging in a particular action. Moreover, admins can drill down to see a complete list of activities by a user on the platform.
These examples highlight why people must always assume parties other than the intended recipients may see their emails. Even if a business email never gets hacked, company representatives often have the right to see what employees send and other details.
Take Proactive Steps to Secure Your Email
Email is never secure by itself. However, you can turn on multifactor authentication or enable encryption to increase security. Moreover, determine whether you can use in-person conversations instead of email, particularly for business-critical matters.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/is-your-business-email-secure/
Ref: makeuseof
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