Issuing an email without encrypting it first has often been compared to sending a postcard through the mail. If you needed to send a private message that contained your company credit card details or information on an upcoming deal, you wouldn’t put it on a card without an envelope where anyone could read it, so why send an email that isn’t encrypted?
You might be thinking that as long as you send your email to a trusted colleague or contact, its contents will be safe, but this scenario is not as secure as it seems. Read for the potential risks of sending an email communication without protecting it with encryption.
Errors and attacks
If an email is sent without encryption and accidentally sent to the wrong recipient, an unauthorised individual may read the content. For this reason, such a mistake constitutes a data breach. Threat actors may also intercept email communications or enter email accounts illegally. If communications are left unprotected, this can put any information contained in them at risk and also results in data being leaked. If these events occur, UK companies must report the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Damage from a data breach
The devastation from a data leak can impact firms both in the short and long-term. Remediation measures and forensic investigations are expensive, but nothing compared to fines from data regulators when a company is found to have taken inadequate measures to secure information. Breaches can lead to attacks that cause disruption and operational downtime that is also costly, but also damage a firm’s reputation with its present and future customers, potentially harming it for years to come.
Two important points to consider before you purchase encryption software
Firstly, always select an email encryption tool that encrypts not just the body copy of your email, but also its attachments to ensure total security.
Secondly, make sure that, while robust, the encryption is easy for your employees to master so it is used correctly. A secure system is no use if nobody knows how to use it.
A user-friendly encryption solution you can count on
At Galaxkey, we have designed a state-of-the-art encryption tool that is US Government-grade and certified by the UK’s own National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). It can add three-layers of powerful encryption to email content using a design based on the advanced onion model. It not only scrambles the body of email messages, making them unintelligible to anyone without appropriate access rights, but applies the same exacting measures to any attachments included with correspondence.
Part of our innovative suite offering exceptional email security tools, it is ably supported by additional options such as electronic signatures, email recall and expiry, delivery confirmation and classification.
Our system makes encryption incredibly easy to use. Simplifying staff training and ensuring encryption is always effectively employed, with a single mouse click, all mail can be safeguarded.
If you’re ready to mitigate the risks of sending unprotected content and communications via email, contact us today and test-drive our enhanced encryption solution with a free two-week trial.
