Email, which is the most common medium for cyberattacks due to its widespread use, was often unable to cope with attacks in its early days due to the inadequacy of technology. However, today, thanks to the best email applications and protocols, such attacks can be effectively detected and prevented. Advanced encryption methods, two-factor authentication (2FA) and artificial intelligence-based filtering systems have greatly increased email security.
What is Email Security?
Email is used to transmit social media and digital campaigns important information, sensitive data, and confidential messages, posing a threat to security and privacy. This is where email security comes into play.
Email security refers to measures taken to protect email accounts, messages, and attachments from unauthorized access, interception, or theft.
What Makes Email Security Practices So Important?
Email security is critical to google my business for free protecting your organization’s sensitive data, which is why your email system needs specific policies to protect vital data from unauthorized access, manipulation, and tampering.
The top executives in your business often send sensitive information for different business activities. For example, a data analyst might share vital customer data with the sales team via email. Email security protocols prevent malicious actors from accessing user data, preventing any harm to your business.
Establishing an email security protocol is an important aspect of data protection. However, there are email security practices that protect your systems from different cyber threats.
Such email security practices may include:
- Regularly review your email system for suspicious activity, such as phishing. Update your email software and signatures to protect against phishing attacks.
- Ensure users have strong passwords and encryption keys for their emails.
- Configure your email consumer data system to send notifications when it is compromised or messages are stolen.
- Define email security protocols in advance and implement them at the enterprise level to ensure better data protection.
- Educate your employees on email security.
Email Security Threats
There are a variety of email-based threats that regularly target organizations. These include:
1. Malware
Hackers look for vulnerable servers to infect with malware. This could be a virus that corrupts your server and prevents messages from flowing freely, or a program designed to steal and sell sensitive information from your server. Hackers may also try to take control of your SMTP server to send people more malicious messages . Regardless of the type of malware, you need to protect your system from being infected.
2. DDoS Attack
DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service , is when hackers flood a server with more requests than it can handle, causing the server to cease to function.
If your email server is targeted by a DDoS attack and it is successful, your server will not be able to send or receive messages. DDoS is one of the most common attacks against email servers or any other type of server. Therefore, corresponding protection is necessary for your SMTP server.
3. Phishing
Phishing is when hackers impersonate a legitimate brand in order to trick email users into giving away sensitive information or installing malware on their devices. An unsuspecting customer may receive a normal-looking message requesting a specific action on their bank account, but the link takes them to a visually identical phishing site. These types of cyberattacks can be particularly difficult to detect.
4. Spamming
Spam is unsolicited messages, usually sent in bulk to email addresses. It is closely associated with spam and malware, as spam messages often contain malicious attachments or phishing links.