Every day, humans receive more than 205 billion emails. By 2019, that number is expected to grow to 246 billion. On average, each business professional sends and receives 120 emails every day. Not all of that email is legitimate; spam, email-borne viruses, phishing emails, ransomware and denial-of-service threats can enter the enterprise right along with these business-critical communiques.
Cyberattacks cost small- to medium-sized businesses up to $74,000 per hour every time their systems go down. Ransomware leverages an even larger penalty. In 2015 alone, businesses paid more than $24,000,000 to regain access to data “held hostage” by cybercriminals. Be aware: ransomware attacks are up 300% since 2015.
The most efficient way to prevent the widespread damage that threats bring is to stop them “at the door” with aggressive, real-time screening. But protection doesn’t stop there, you also need to:
- Encrypt data in the cloud, preferably to military-grade 256-AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), and use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to secure data in transit.
- Comply with industry-specific regulatory mandates, such as HIPPA in healthcare.
- Stay up to date on all technology licenses to ensure you receive security patches and implement them across the enterprise on all devices.
Purchasing an email security software package and deploying it across your entire enterprise will help you to meet these technology goals. Carmichael Consulting recommends Barracuda Email Security and Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) because it works with email from any software application, hosted exchange service or device.
Finally, don’t forget to educate your employees. One of the most pervasive threats to data security is the common “sticky note” which contains log-in and password information and can usually be found next to a desktop or laptop. Make sure they understand the value of tough-to-decipher passwords that are changed often.
Contact Carmichael Consulting to learn more about how to minimize email-borne threats, click here or call 687.719.9671.
