It is almost impossible to go a single day without the newspaper, TV, internet, or radio referencing to email hacks and whatnot. Most of the time, the problem has to do with information security.
The primary reason for so many email mishaps is that hackers want to steal all the data that companies and government agencies have collected on you. This is also why even private-sector organizations end up exposing sensitive information.
Email security is not that different from any kind of security in the online world. The cybersecurity architecture usually contains all forms of network security including email security.
Organizations, however, seem not to give too much thought to email security and only start taking action once hackers have compromised their databases.
Because of the increased usage of the internet for daily communications, email security is no longer a light matter.
Some of the biggest cyber threats in recent years have targeted services with primitive email security measures.
And while there are ways to get email security without spending many resources, cyber threats require good hygiene. And one of the best ways to learn good habits is to know more about protecting your privacy and security.
Looking at the vast majority of cyberattacks in recent months, hackers use email communication channels in order to target and attack organizations working in different industries. The most notorious of such attacks involve phishing emails via which hackers can deceive employees or individuals into submitting their personal information on insecure channels.
A simple flaw in email security can lead hackers to get fake invoices approved by big technology companies. They can also trick users into downloading nasty malware that can bring their systems down to a halt.
Moreover, sometimes the malware can travel from one computer to another throughout the network without any obstruction.
With low email security, hackers don’t have to compromise the whole organization in order to damage it. It can simply get one employee’s email address, compromise it, and then send dozens of phishing emails to all the other employees in the company and/or the contacts of the compromised employee.
Of course, the recipients have no idea that hackers have hijacked the sender’s account because of low email security. This way, hackers can easily gain the recipient’s trust and can cause massive data breaches.
Companies can lose millions of dollars each year just because they don’t give proper attention to email security. Even the simplest of email protection tools can thwart many types of cyberattacks, including those that can potentially hurt an entire organization.
As mentioned above, phishing attacks form a large portion of all cyberattacks but there are other popular methods of attack as well. And all of them take advantage of email security flaws that exist in different services in one form or another.
Apart from that, hackers also use tried-and-tested classical methods such as sending email messages with malicious links and attachments. Once a user downloads them, they infect the machine and, in some cases, take over.
Weak email passwords is another major email security risk that is very important and often overlooked. And the easiest way to guard against that is to use a password manager and create long passwords that are not easy to guess.
Pro Tip:
As for solutions, you can try and use an antivirus program that always checks your email messages before you download something via an attachment. There are phishing attack detection tools available that you can use to secure your email links.Conclusion
Email security is already very important but will become even more important in the future as more and more people do more and more of their important stuff with help from the internet.
