Love them or loathe them, if your working habits are anything like the average American professional, research suggests that you spend up to 28% of the day reading and answering emails. That’s 2.6 hours a total of 120 messages received each day!
This goes some way to demonstrating how vital emails are to our working lives and with them being so vital, we wonder how much thought you give to email security.
Not only is email an extremely easy way to get a malicious link into your system, but with the amount of personal information being processed you could be risking an expensive and damaging data breach by not taking the appropriate steps.
Here are five top ways to get smart with your email security:
Always Have A Different Password
Yes, we are all guilty of it. That is, using the same password for multiple applications or simple passwords such as ‘Password123’. However, have you ever considered the damage that someone could do if they managed to find your password and get access?
Yes, it’s a scary thought and one that you don’t want to think about too much! We recommend making sure you have a different password for each application and also that they are changed on a regular basis.
Get Smart With Phishing Emails
It’s not only an incredible offer of someone trying to give you millions of dollars but clever emails that look official and try to get things such as your login details.
If you ever receive an email asking for a password reset, or for you to use their link to log into an account you have then beware. Things may not be quite as they seem!
You will want to check things such as spelling, grammar, click on the email address, and see if it is legitimate, does something look funny with the design? If you are needing to check these things then the likelihood is that the email is not legitimate.
If you are in doubt, do not click on any links. Rather, contact the company directly through the details on their legitimate website and check it out.
Use Your Spam Filter
Prevention a problem happening in the first place is always the best cure and we recommend making sure you have your spam filter turned on. This will prevent phishing emails from reaching your inbox and not only mean you have less traffic but less risk of clicking on any unwanted links.
Make Use Of A Secure Data Transfer Facility
If you are sending sensitive information such as payslips, patient records, legal or financial documents, you will probably not want to send them as a simple email attachment. If someone got access to these (even though you accidentally sending to the wrong person), then there could be big issues.
You will want to consider using a secure data transfer platform (such as Egress) where the recipient is required to log into a portal to view your email. As with our point about passwords, however, just make sure you don’t use the same one!