Today, majority of business communications happen through email.  Employees may request contract information through email when meeting clients. Remote employees may share their sales report with their managers through email. Since email is used to send and share sensitive data, businesses need to take concrete steps to secure their communication.

Data Leaks Through Email a Reality

The number of data leaks and financial losses has increased in recent years. According to Global Sign report, 22% of companies experience data loss through emails each year. While some of the incidents are caused by hackers, majority of them happen due to mistakes and carelessness.

Perhaps, email is too convenient and it is too easy to send sensitive information to someone, leaving it susceptible to fall into wrong hands.  A lot of such data leaks can be prevented if companies take a timely decision of encrypting their email communication.

Email encryption is the best tool available for businesses to secure their email communication. If you look at the enterprises using email encryption, most of them use second generation email encryption services that are cloud based.  Here is some information about cloud-based email encryption.

What Is Cloud-Based Email Encryption?

Cloud-based encryption is popular with businesses as they offer a number of encryption options without complicated key management.  The email encryption service is fully integrated with your outbound mail and you are not required to use any specific email client.

Majority of the email encryption services use 256 AES bit encryption which is highly secure.  Every mail that meets your organization mail policy is encrypted and sent over the network. Your employees don’t have to install and run any software to encrypt the mail.

Now that you know how cloud-based email encryption works, here are few reasons to use it.

Avoid Business Risks

You are putting your business at risks by sending unencrypted mail.  Without encryption, there are high chances of your email getting interpreted and the contents (business plans, contracts, trade secrets) being read or altered.  Your competitors can use this information against you. So, to avoid any risks to the business you should go for email encryption.

Meet Compliance

Businesses in healthcare and insurance industry are required to meet HIPAA compliance regarding data safety.  It is quite common practice followed by healthcare providers to send PHI (personal health information) through email.

There are reports of an increase in cyber-attacks on healthcare companies as the high value of PHI in the black market attracts hackers. According to these reports, 10 Medicare ID numbers are sold for $4500 which is then used for false insurance claims to siphon lead to payouts of a large amount of money.

Email encryption greatly reduces the chances of your email message being hacked and read when intercepted by a hacker.   The email encryption also stores the mail in encrypted form. In an event, your company’s email server is hacked; the email messages and the content inside remain safe as they are encrypted.

Protect Confidential Information

Email encryption is useful to protect confidential information such as banking account number, credit card number, social security number, etc. In case your mail is not encrypted, some wrong people can get hold of information and use it for their selfish motives.

Your username and password can also be stolen without much difficulty. By using your email encryption, your confidential information in mail remains protected at all times.

Eliminate Possibility of Message Relay

You already known email messages can be read and altered but you don’t know the altered messages can also be resent and the recipient may not know the message is compromised. When you use email encryption services, the message that is downloaded at recipient server is checked for authenticity.

If the message received does not match the original message, the recipient will get an error message during encryption.

Avoid Identity theft

If any person gets holds of your username and password, it would be an easy task for the person to read your mail and also reply on your behalf.

Email is a fantastic technology but it also has some downsides. If you encrypt your email, it is a daunting task for a hacker to decrypt your email. In most cases, hackers find encrypted email unattractive and they go looking for easy targets.

Email encryption works to eliminate the downsides of email by making it secure so that businesses can continue to enjoy the advantages of mobility, economy, and reliability associated with it.

How do you secure your email communication?