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Enterprise Security Magazine | Friday, January 14, 2022
Humanity has progressed from distributing faxes and sorting through mountains of mail to near-real-time electronic communications since the 1970s. Email is now used by practically every business and home on the planet.
FREMONT, CA: Email encryption is the process and method of masking the contents of email conversations to safeguard potentially sensitive data and ensure that only the intended recipients have access. The term "email encryption" refers to the encryption of the email itself, the encryption of the data storage that holds emails, and the encryption of the communication channels used to send and receive emails.
Email encryption provides numerous benefits to businesses - here are five of the most significant.
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Assisting with compliance and governance
Numerous highly regulated sectors have policies requiring encrypted email conversations in specific circumstances. Individuals can mitigate compliance risk by encrypting PII and personal health information while transmitting them (PHI). Even though encryption is not required explicitly, encrypting PII can mitigate the risk of litigation, penalties, and damages in the event of a hack.
Several industries and regulatory organizations enforcing email encryption include the following:
Increasing the efficiency of business
Many managers are unaware of the benefits of encrypted email for their firms. The most typical application is in securing customer conversations. Some of the most private and sensitive information is required to conduct business with customers. It may contain social security numbers, details about an employer, or a home address.
Using encrypted email as a substitute for requiring all clients to connect only via secure information systems and web portals is a realistic option. The convenience of email is crucial during the early phases of client acquisition, as creating an account through an organization's portal may be a turn-off.
The convenience and personal touch of engaging directly with consumers while maintaining a documented record via email can help reduce churn and boost sales results.
Managing the enterprise's attack surface
Email serves as the launchpad for a large number of cyberattacks. While many security teams focus their efforts appropriately on reducing phishing attacks against employees via email, even genuine email traffic poses a substantial danger. This is because organizations keep email traffic on SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers, which retain backup copies for years.
The material contained in these emails poses a significant danger of breaching confidentiality, disclosing proprietary information, and violating compliance in various businesses. By encrypting all email traffic, a would-be attacker's work becomes incredibly time-consuming and laborious, even if the email server has been compromised because they must decrypt each email individually.
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