So much business is done via email in the 21st century – we all use it for everything from a quick reminder, a short note, or even for contracts, more formal correspondence, and finding new clients. If we didn’t have email, it is likely that many businesses would not be able to continue.
Despite how universally loved it is, and how useful it can be, there are risks with email. If it is not protected or encrypted in any way, it can even become dangerous. It can certainly be a way for cybercriminals and identity thieves to make trouble for you and your business. Here are some of the reasons why having a protected business email account is so important.
Avoid Risk
If you send an unencrypted email, anyone who accesses it will have all the information that is contained within it. In business, this can be a dangerous thing to happen. Emails could contain banking details, your customer’s personal details (such as name, address, and date of birth), and sensitive information that you would rather not have shared around, and by leaving them unprotected and non-encrypted, you are leaving them open to all kinds of thieves and criminals.
You might even be leaving the information open to your competitors. You never know who is reading your emails or what they are doing with the information, and the only way to stop this from happening is to stop sending emails altogether or ensure your business email providers offer encryption.
To Stop Message Replay Scenarios
When you send an email, it should arrive at your recipient’s email address untouched. However, it is possible for cybercriminals to interrupt the transmission, change the details of the email, and then send it on. This means that although the email may seem to come from you, it actually doesn’t, and any information then sent in a reply will go to someone who is going to use it for criminal reasons.
To stop this from being possible, you need to use encryption. It means that no one will be able to read your message until it has been delivered to the right place; therefore it will arrive as it is meant to.
Protect Your Reputation
If something were to go wrong with your email system and all the information was leaked thanks to non-encryption, the reputation of your business would suffer hugely. It can take many years to build up a good reputation, especially if there is a lot of competition, but it is so easy to lose it all again, and this kind of email issue is exactly how it can so easily happen.
Losing your customers data to potential identity thieves is a difficult mistake to come back from, and anyone who might have been thinking of using your business would certainly be having second thoughts.
Rather than having to start again because of a mistake, it is far better to ensure your emails are protected now. You could even make it part of your marketing so that everyone knows you are taking their safety seriously.
