Email security has transcended into ridiculousness

While it is never good to make light of a serious situation such as IT security, businesses as well as health care providers and government agencies have been making it quite difficult to keep a lid on hilarity. That was meant to evoke "Hillary," in case anyone was wondering, as Mrs. Clinton has been in the news plenty of late for not only her newly announced candidacy for president, but her allegedly horrid management of email communications when she was Secretary of State as well.

The reason why email security conversations have started to be a bit farcical in nature is that email is the single most popular form of communication in business and the public sector. It is also the simplest, yet it continues to be the most commonly misused. Rather than battening down the hatches, teaching employees how to handle email communications properly, incorporating encryption and deploying other proven defenses, it appears as though organizations and consumers are completely free from worry about their online behaviors.

This cannot continue should the United States and other nations hope to protect themselves and their citizens from fraud, identity theft, data breaches and more; nor does it need to, given how ubiquitous protective resources have become in the past few years. Therein lies the most disheartening part of this battle - the fact that such a small investment of time, resources and budget can make a world of difference in protecting firms from email-based security threats.

In the coming years, chances are that email will continue to be a major source of frustration for businesses and opportunity for cybercriminals, as the rate with which these communications are being exposed is intensifying. That assumption could be up for some debate, but business leaders must not worry too much about what the status quo is. Instead, they should look to protect themselves and their finances from the threat of breach through the use of email encryption technology.

Government's shoddy example

In only a couple of weeks, it became clear that the federal government was simply not doing enough by way of email security and management to set a sound example for the private sector. In fact, some of the news stories that broke were indicative of an organization that really puts no stake in serious email security and archiving strategies at all, going against the law in certain situations and angering everyone from Congress to the average consumer.
First, Hillary Clinton has been accused of breaking the regulations in place regarding commercial email use for official government business. According to ABC News, Clinton's emails had not been properly managed or archived within the confines of the law when she was acting as the nation's Secretary of State. The New York Times later explained that the private email address was the real problem.

Especially because of the close proximity to the presidential election in 2016, it might be difficult to really make sense of all this at present, as political leanings yield hyperbole. However, objectively speaking, this is just one sign that some of the highest-level officials in Washington are not following proper guidelines to protect records and make all forms of communication transparent to the public, which is a major problem, to say the least.

Then, a recent eWEEK article affirmed that the White House was attacked by a Russian hacking syndicate back in 2014. The incident, which involved the breach of a network. has thus far been deemed "unclassified." Although officials have asserted that the information stolen was not sensitive by any means, they have yet to describe what was stolen in the attack. Even if they are correct about the benign nature of the data, the fact that the White House was breached should be a sign that email security is simply becoming a farce.

No laughing matter

Data breaches of any kind can be devastating to businesses, public-sector agencies, households and other entities, and email has become one of the more common channels through which hackers get the job done. Even when discussing consumer protection, it should not take long to realize just how much sensitive material passes through email accounts every day, especially when these are linked to other services on the Web.

While consumers will have to make security decisions regarding their personal accounts on their own, businesses should not be viewing enhanced email security deployments as optional matters, as this will put them at significant risk of financial loss and reputation issues in the market. Modern email encryption tools are highly intuitive, meaning that they will not hinder productivity or cause headaches among users while they boost endpoint security and protect sensitive information included in communications.
Rather than waiting for more parties to take this matter seriously, leaders should get on board with email security enhancements as soon as possible.

David Bailey is Senior Vice President at Protected Trust. 

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