May organizations need to send or receive sensitive, PII, or ePHI information via email. From drivers licenses, social security numbers, contract information, and the latest in financial data, it is critical for organizations to make sure this information stays confidential. These scenarios are the reason why email encryption should be one of your organizational pillars. Email encryption helps:
- Reduce Business Risk:
- These days there is so much at stake due to various email threats, so no one wants to send unencrypted emails. Without email encryption, any stranger can have access to the information which is contained in your mail. Your competitors can use such information against you. Therefore to avoid business and other kinds of risks, it is advisable that you encrypt your email to help protect sensitive data.
- Protect Confidential Information:
- Email encryption protects confidential information such as your credit card number, banking account number, social security number etc. In case your mail is not encrypted, an attacker can use your personal information for their ulterior motives. Can you imagine that the messages which you sent can be read or even altered in transit? Even the username as well as password which you type can be stolen without much difficulty. So to avoid leakage of such vital information, email encryption is essential.
- Remove Message Replay Possibility:
- You already know that the message you sent can be modified, but then there is one more thing that is possible with the messages you send. Messages can be saved, altered, and then re-sent later on. One can get an authentic message first and then receive fake messages which appear to be official later on. The recipient cannot tell whether the email message which has been sent to him is altered. In case the message was just deleted, they will not even know that it had ever been sent.
- Avoid Identity Theft:
- If any person gets hold of your username and password, which you use to get to your email servers, he or she can read the emails you send and send false email messages on your behalf. This is referred to as identity theft and can be avoided if you go in for email encryption.
- Repudiate Sent Messages:
- Because it is easy to forge regular email messages, you can never really prove that an individual has sent you a particular message. This connotes that even if a person sent you a particular message, he could deny sending it. This has profound implications regarding making use of email for the purpose of contracts, electronic commerce, business communications, etc.
- Stay Compliant:
- Whether you are working in healthcare, education, government, financial or non-profit verticals, you will always have to adhere to established compliance requirements. For example, HIPAA encryption requirements for transmission of Electronic Personal Health Information (ePHI) states that covered entities should implement a mechanism to encrypt ePHI whenever deemed appropriate. Organizations that work in k-12 or higher education can make sure student data remains secure by using email encryption.
