Blog, published January 12, 2023 by Justin Hill

Secure Your Communications: Why Email Encryption Matters

Emails are now not only an important part of our daily lives but also one of the most used gateways for cybercriminals into our lives. Let’s explore how we can keep the door shut.

The importance of email encryption

Email encryption refers to, as the name suggests, encrypting the content of emails in order to protect sensitive information. That can range from your phone number to customer information.

The need to have your emails encrypted does not stop at sensitive data that might be sent in the email body. If your email is unsecure you can get your attachments read or your account hacked all together, making you a liability for your company.

A lot of the information that is passed along within a company is sent using email. This only comes to add as to why it is important to have all that information encrypted so that it is secure.

There is also a legal factor that needs to be taken into consideration when deciding to implement email encryption for your company. There are a number of laws, both in the US and EU that enforce just that: email encryption and data security and privacy. HIPAA is the most known in the US while GDPR is for the EU. Both of them aim to ensure that the data of users are as secure as possible. Especially when we are talking about sensitive data, like Social Security Numbers for instance you need to make sure that the data is safe.

The main liability is getting sued for amounts that can put you out of business. The fines are not negligible as well, ranging for HIPAA violations from Tier 1: Minimum fine of $100 per violation up to $50,000.

Last and certainly not least you will want to protect your own intellectual property. Emails can carry important inside information that offer you the edge business wise and you don’t want that info falling into that wrong hands.

A data breach can have effects from minor, a short disruption into your work day and can go up to putting you out of business, so having some proper email encryption in place is a must in today’s cyber environment.

Different types of email encryption, and shortfalls

We have talked a lot about the importance of email encryption, let’s see how we choose the best email encryption for the business we are running.

There are three things you need to encrypt to start with: the connection, the email body, the stored, archived emails.

When you encrypt your connection you are basically preventing unauthorized users from stealing your login credentials and the emails that leave your email provider’s server, traveling around the web.

Encrypting the email body helps in case your first line of defense, the connection has failed. Should your emails get into a hacker’s hand, if your email is encrypted is basically unreadable, rendering them useless.

For the same reason you need to make sure that your older, archived emails are encrypted. Should hackers get a hold of your passwords if the emails are encrypted they cannot be read.

Automated email encryption solutions

As you might have figured out by now, having all that encryption done manually is a task worthy of an entire IT department. Even if you have an army, having the right tools in place saves time, money and also makes it easier to keep up to date with legislative changes.

One solution that can solve a lot of issues for you when it comes to email encryption is Proofpoint Essentials Advanced.

You get protection for malware-based threats such as malicious attachments or links and from malware-free threats like email fraud or credential phishing emails.

Since social media is not only part of our personal lives but our professional one as well, Proofpoint Essentials Advanced offers defense against attacks across social media channels.

Built-in data loss prevention (DLP) and email encryption discover and secure sensitive information sent in email. And its comprehensive email continuity helps keep your business communications up and running at all times.

The main strengths that Proofpoint Essentials Advanced are:

• Multi-layered protection. With the help of multilayered anti-virus, anti-spam, and phishing detection engines you ensure the best protection against malware-based and malware-free email threats. Proofpoint will then capture and block all known viruses. The heuristic scanning also gives a hand in identifying unknown email threats and protects you against them in real-time.

• Advanced protection against malicious URLs and attachments. With Proofpoint you get the advanced power of Targeted Attack Protection, an email analysis solution, to protect your people. This unique technology provides you with URL and attachment sandboxing analysis.

• Policy-driven email DLP. Proofpoint Essentials Advanced comes with a policy-driven DLP filter which helps reduce risks when your employees make security and disclosure policy decisions. You can automatically identify and secure outgoing sensitive information. This includes PII, PHI, financial information, GDPR terms, and many more with built-in term dictionaries and SmartSearch identifiers. All you have to do is send an email. Proofpoint takes care of the rest.

• Automated email encryption. Securing emails that contain sensitive data is one of the most important aspects you will need to solve. Losing confidential or customer information may lead to fines, loss of business and a loss of trust from potential customers. Proofpoint Essentials Advanced comes with an automatic email encryption which helps companies reduce the potential negative impacts of data loss.

• Business Continuity. Being protected is one thing, having backup so you can ensure your business keeps running even when disaster strikes is a separate matter which also needs to be addressed. Proofpoint Essentials Advanced comes with an emergency inbox, instant replay of lost or deleted emails over the last 30 days, and email spooling to help keep your business going.

• Social Media Account Protection. Proofpoint Essentials Advanced offers social media account protection and compliance for up to three branded social media accounts. It helps you monitor each account to prevent account hacking and protect from spam and malware being posted on your channels.

Today’s cyber environment has forced us to figure out how to ensure that our work is protected. Information is a currency in itself so having encryption in order to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands is a must. An automated email encryption solution comes to address a number of issues and also protect your business from a lot of potential issues.

For more information about Proofpoint Essentials Advanced drop us a line and we are happy to help you find the best solution for your business.

Filed under business practices, compliance, cybersecurity