Email is one of the most popular methods of online correspondence, especially for businesses. But most of the malware installed on compromised networks comes from email attachments. Without proper security measures, email can easily serve as an entry point for attackers.
Corporate email accounts are prime targets for cybercriminals as they are the likely source of valuable business and customer data. Implementing email security best practices can help you reduce the risk of cyber attacks using email by helping prevent attackers from using email as a means of accessing your data and systems.
Email protection |
Key Best Practices for Email Security
These essential employee email security techniques can help you protect your company's email accounts from the risk of email-related cyberattacks, such as email spoofing and malicious attachments.
Conduct Cyber-Hygiene Improvement Classes with Your Staff
email protectionRaising cybersecurity awareness, which is often overlooked, is an important aspect of a successful cybersecurity strategy. Each employee, regardless of work experience, must undergo comprehensive training on cybersecurity issues. Whether you are a multi-continent enterprise or a small business just starting to grow, your company can be the target of cyber attacks. A common misconception is that small businesses are immune to cybercrime - in fact, small businesses are often the victims of cyber attacks simply because they are less likely to implement advanced security measures, making them an easy target.
With the constant threat of cybercrime transmitted through email, it is imperative for your employees to have a clear understanding of how email threats work and how they can be avoided. Employees should be trained on how to respond when they believe they have received a malicious or suspicious email. If a phishing email is received, employees can respond in two ways. They can either open an attachment that will infect their device with malware and potentially cause a large-scale breach, or a ransomware attack in your company - or they can move the email to a junk folder and forward it to the IT department, informing them of the threats. transmitted by e-mail.
As this example illustrates, raising awareness of cybersecurity comprehensively can make a difference. However, if an employee who receives a malicious email does not know how to distinguish a suspicious email from a safe one, the risk of becoming a victim of a cyberattack is significantly higher. Thus, a cyber hygiene class should teach employees how to identify and flag suspicious emails. The training should be updated regularly to reflect evolving fraud tactics.
Here are some more cybersecurity awareness tips to include in your training sessions:
Emphasize the importance of separating business and personal email
Discourage employees from checking business emails from their mobile phones
Encourage employees to update their email passwords regularly
Encourage employees to use complex unique passwords
Keep your passwords secure 🔐
Password |
email protectionPasswords are our primary line of defense against cybercrime and unauthorized access to our sensitive data. But they are as strong as we make them. There are several ways to ensure strong and secure passwords. We recommend that you implement a password policy that employees must follow to make sure they understand what a strong password does and do not accidentally create vulnerabilities on your network.
A standard password policy should include the following:
Reset passwords regularly
Make sure passwords are unique and not reused across multiple accounts.
Make sure passwords do not contain common phrases or personal information (such as birthdays, names, etc.)
Make sure passwords are at least eight characters long and include uppercase and lowercase letters as well as symbols and numbers.
Don't encourage sharing passwords.
Store your passwords securely (for example, in a password management solution with advanced encryption methods)
Using strong passwords is critical to protecting your email accounts and is an important method of keeping your email secure. Implementing a password policy can help you keep your passwords secure.
Develop a cybersecurity plan
Password policy should be part of a broader cybersecurity plan. A comprehensive, well-designed cybersecurity plan can help your company avoid many of the threats and risks hidden on the web. When designing it, make sure you consider email threats. You must include policies, guidelines, requirements, and guidelines on how to implement and use all of the technologies your business uses, including email communication channels.
Writing a cybersecurity plan is critical because even the most successful corporate email security best practices will become obsolete if your company is vulnerable to cyber attacks in other areas.
Use an antivirus solution |
Many corporate antivirus solutions come with mail filtering and file and website scanning capabilities. These features can help your company to proactively identify email threats, reducing the chances of your devices and networks being compromised. We recommend that you configure your antivirus software to work with your mail server if possible - this will allow your antivirus solution to scan business emails and filter out malicious emails, helping to prevent your employees from receiving them.
Implement email security solutions
email protectionIn addition to antivirus software, you should also consider implementing other email protection tools such as anti-malware and email protection solutions. Enterprise-grade email protection tools can significantly reduce the chance of human error leading to corporate email compromise and help you detect and defend against targeted attacks.
All information security vendors offer similar tools. InfoTel offers similar solutions from manufacturers such as Fortinet and Sophos.
By implementing the corporate email security best practices for the employees listed above, you can help keep your corporate email accounts safe from email threats. But none of the email protection methods will help if they work alone — to achieve strong protection, you must take a comprehensive email protection approach to mitigate potential vulnerabilities and threats.
Add Comments