Email encryption is vital to small businesses in the US. There are a vast array of new and increasingly innovative collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, G Suite, and countless others to make work more collaborative. The result is that the way email is used may have changed slightly.
But as new approaches to working come in and collaboration tools connect remote teams more effectively, email still plays a huge part in day-to-day life. Indeed, it remains the most common form of communication for businesses in the US. It also serves as a storage archive for crucial business data such as finances, product development, patents, contracts, and sensitive data about firms’ clients. In short, the use of email is showing no signs of slowing down.
In this article we look at the threat email hacks pose to US businesses, and how to shut down the risk of the email being exploited.
What threat does an email hack pose to small businesses?
It’s often the big companies and governments that make the headlines. But for every Facebook or hospital that loses valuable consumer data, there is countless other small business every day across the US that suffers data breaches.
In a Cost of a Data Breach Report conducted by IBM in 2019, it was found that the average financial cost to US businesses of a data breach is almost $4 million. Furthermore, each breach on average exposes over 25,000 data records, meaning that intangible reputational damage to a firm is even more costly.
What is the cause of the breaches?
Phishing attacks are the main way these attacks are executed by cybercriminals. Executing them through email is a particularly popular choice since phishing emails and attachments are easy to produce. Another advantage for cybercriminals carrying out this kind of attack is that they can be made to look very convincing in order to entice busy employees to click infected links or files.
How can US businesses secure themselves with email encryption
Email encryption provides peace of mind that email systems cannot be hacked by cybercriminals. Most fundamentally, email encryption means management, employees, contractors, and partners do not need to be concerned with whether an email is from a legitimate source.
This peace of mind comes from the fact that email encryption makes it almost impossible for cybercriminals to gain access to a company’s data through its email system. This safety is achieved with multi-layer AES256 encryption, two-factor authentication, distributed encryption keys, geolocated sign-in requests, and message expiration and recall.
Does email encryption impact the user experience?
With nothing to install for IT or management and password-free sign-in for users, a good email encryption solution is seamless on all levels of the company. Large attachments can still be sent freely, there’s nothing to install, and the security layer covers emails sent from desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Find out more
Read more about our encrypted email solutions and how they can help your business.
