Corporate email security threats and their impact on business operations

Corporate Email Security

Poor Email Security and Its Impact to Business Operation

Today's high technology still doesn't make us free from threats that can cause damage to important information. This is especially true to many businesses. A large percentage of information problems in businesses take place in email because of the poor email security that some companies implement in their organization.

As indicated by the article "Stop Email Fraud Before It Stops You,"

According to an April 2004 from Gartner Group, an estimated 57 million Americans think that they have received a phishing email. And the problem is growing. A study by the Anti-Phishing Working Group showed that between November 2003 and April 2004, phishing emails -- the most common type of fraudulent email-increased 110% each month. With the average successful fraud netting $1,400, consumer email fraud is already a $5 billion industry."

Thus, problems like email spams that do not only eat up storage spaces in servers but also brings other problems like virus and spywares puts into risk the confidentiality and integrity of the organization's diverse information.

The impact of poor email security to a business ranges from slight to severe problems. Slight problems include the usage of email server's storage space, interference to a smooth business continuity and operation due to email frauds, and traffic over email networks. But for the severe problem, which is always the concern about lack of email security, is the possibility of devastating the security and integrity of sensitive information that, if attacked, may cause significant losses to a business. Downtimes due to email security problems, and loss of information security and integrity, can similarly result to negative consequence to an organization's brand and reliability.

Organizations that are engaged in financial services, health care, and insurance, are usually the target of cyber-attackers by taking advantage of email security's vulnerabilities. A lot of events that happened in many parts of the globe, such as in banks and other financial institutions, have proven that the stability of a business can be threatened because of problems that were caused by poor email security. One of which is the spread of the "love virus" which was transported via email and had impede a lot of business operations.

Best Practices, Tools, and Methods to Ensure Email Security

The article "Stop Email Fraud Before It Stops You" has identified significant information regarding the problems and solutions to email security problems. It was suggested that a combination of tools and best techniques creates an effective method to combat email security problems such as frauds. Following are the four suggested steps as indicated in the article.

Detect. Use analysis techniques specifically designed to detect fraud.

There are many anti-spam softwares but not all can detect which are really fraudulent emails because some tend to look similar to the elements of real emails such as the email address. Important things to consider to assess the integrity of emails are the content, format, and sources.

Why Corporate Customers Should Outsource Their Email?

Outsourcing emails has been one of the solutions that some organizations choose to solve email security problems. Following are some of the reasons why it is sometimes better to outsource emails than to maintain them by the organization itself.

It is cost-effective.

Maintaining an own email server would require a number of staff to ensure that the server never experiences a downtime. This means it requires a number of staffs for a 24-hour monitoring and service. Moreover, hardware and software upgrades are certainly needed as more and more advanced technology is being developed. However, if emails will be outsourced, it is more cost-effective to an organization because of less need for email administrators/technical staffs as well as the cost of upgrades will no longer be a problem.

Reliability of Continuous Service and Improved Customer Service

Outsourcing emails allows greater possibility of never experiencing a downtime because it is what the email service provider is supposed to provide to its clients. Moreover, the expertise of email service providers ensures this benefit. Consequently, with a guaranteed 24-hour email service, service to customers will not be put at risk.

Better Anti-Spam and Virus Prevention Solutions

Similar to 24-hour service, there is a greater guarantee of anti-spam and virus free emails because it is the expertise and focus of email service providers. Thus, providing an increased integrity and reliability of email contents.

NISA Custom Internet Solutions has further listed the following advantages of outsourcing emails.

By outsourcing email, the company is able to keep doing its business and leave the job of electronic mail to professionals. Not only does the company not have to worry about purchasing hardware and software, but the costs of Information Technology (IT) staff are non-existant. (NISA Online)

By outsourcing email, network security is increased, a greater dependency on email results in increased productivity, and staffing budgets allow resources to be allocated where they are needed the most. nefits far exceed the costs of outsourcing email. (NISA Online)

By outsourcing email, a consistent look and feel to the company's image can be maintained, regardless of network structure, the number of offices, or the number of employees. Internet email can be integrated as part of the internal email system. (NISA Online)