In every business around the globe, email remains to be the primary form of communication for professional interaction purposes. Although there are many new forms of communication and platforms have been introduced during the past few years, but still emails are used because they provide authentication, privacy, and are easy to organize.
Email communication is becoming more essential as businesses are shifting toward hiring remote workers and email is served as the official form of communication. Besides all the benefits there is one downside to email communication and that is email security. Email security is important for every organization, business, and individual that uses email for communication. Here are 10 reasons why:
#1. Email security avoids the risk of identity theft
Identity theft is one of the biggest cybercrimes and is spreading like wildfire. According to the statistics, every year around 15 million Americans become victims of identity theft. Roughly 33% of Americans have suffered from identity theft. Sharing your credentials via email with a superior is considered normal practice in the office environment. However, if that email is not encrypted any cybercriminal can get access to your credentials and use them to access your system. With email security, you can encrypt your emails and avoid the risk of identity theft.
#2. Email security protects you against phishing attacks
The phishing attack is one of the most used techniques by cybercriminals. For phishing attacks cybercriminals create a deceptive email that looks to be legitimate and lure the victim into clicking on a link, opening a media file, or providing their credentials. Once any of these actions are taken by a victim, attackers gain access to your system and execute a cyber-attack. Email security protects you from getting these emails and falling into the trap. In 2021, all-time high phishing attacks were recorded so it’s important to protect yourself against such attacks.
#3. Email security helps in securing the email backups
Do you know that all the emails are sent and received through the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server? This server is responsible for all the communication done through emails. When the sender sends the email, it is automatically stored on SMTP servers as a backup in simple text format. If an attacker gets access to the server then all your email would be unprotected. Email security secures the email backup by encrypting and using privileged access management systems.
#4. Email security protects from message relay attacks
Once you send an email it can be delayed, saved, modified, and resent to the recipient. These forms of attacks are also very common and known as message relay attacks. When the recipient has received one authentic message then they won’t suspect the second message to be fake or altered. Email security protects from message relay attacks by using OTP, expiration times, session keys, and timestamps.
#5. Email security keeps your confidential information secure
As discussed earlier that email is used as an official form of communication for professional interactions. So, when communicating with a client or within the organization all kinds of sensitive information is shared via email. Without email security getting access to the confidential information shared through email is a piece of cake for cybercriminals.
#6. Email security minimizes attacks caused by human error
Having a proper email security system minimizes the attacks caused by human error. Around 97% of people around the world are unable to identify phishing emails correctly and make a mistake that can compromise the security of your company. Human error is one of the major reasons for most cyber-attacks. Email security ensures that such emails don’t even reach your inbox which minimizes the attacks significantly.
#7. Email security keeps your communication encrypted
Every business is competitive in its niche and some trade secrets make you stand out from the crowd. If you have weak email security your adversaries may use this to get access to your trade secrets which are the pillars of your business. Email security will encrypt all the information in your emails and keeps your email communication encrypted.
#8. Email security secures the easiest entryway into a company
The easiest way to gain access to the system in any organization is through email which is considered the easiest entryway. More than 90% of cyber security attacks begin with phishing emails. On average, an employee sends and receives more than 300 emails every day and 85% of emails are spam. Email security secures the easiest pathway for hackers i.e., emails.
#9. Email security reduces cyber security attacks significantly
As we know the majority of cyber-attacks start due to un-secure emails. Email security is still one of the biggest cyber security problems that need to be fixed. Once you implement email security then you will experience that number of cyber security attacks are reduced significantly.
#10. Email security improves the security posture
A better security posture is necessary for the company’s employees to work without any security threat. Security posture depicts how resilient a company is in terms of cyber security. With email security, you won’t even let a suspicious email reach the inbox which is a proactive approach. It highly improves the overall security posture of your company.
