EM+S Blog Week 1: Email Encryption
This week we’ll be looking at email encryption, known as Microsoft Secure Messaging, which is provided as part of Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility + Security solution.
So what is email encryption? Email encryption ensures your communications are safe by encrypting messages when they are sent, allowing only the sender and intended recipients to view the message.
It’s crucial to make sure your communications are safe and that you’re not risking losing sensitive data. Here are 4 great reasons that you should be using it:
1. Your emails really aren’t that safe
When your emails are sent across the internet they’re sent in plain text. This means that any hacker who intercepts the message can view the entire contents. But even if your message arrives safely, what’s to stop it being forwarded on to people who weren’t meant to see the message?
Email encryption ensures that only the sender and intended recipients can view the message. You can also set “Do Not Forward” as the standard encryption level to prevent forwarding and printing to ensure the communication stays private.
2. It’s really easy to use
As a sender it’s pretty much as simple as clicking a button or typing a keyword such as “Private” or “Secure” to automatically encrypt the email. In fact you can setup a whole variety of mail flow rules to catch any errant emails and apply encryption
As for your recipients they can read the email on any device, whether it’s an iPhone, android device or computer, and any email platform such as Office 365 or Gmail.
3. You probably need it
With GDPR having come into full force it’s crucial that organisations prevent risk of a data breach. We often need to send the most sensitive data by email where it’s most vulnerable to exposure.
Being able to confidently say that you have email encryption in place ticks another box in working towards compliance, but also gives you peace of mind knowing your communications cannot be hacked.
4. And your customers may need you to have it
Depending on who your customers are, they may already require that you use email encryption, but more and more companies and public-sector organisations are requiring that their partners and vendors use email encryption.
