Email security is about the different security measures your company can take to keep your email messages safe from cybercriminals. Here are some of the best things you and your employees can do to defend against them. 

Run Regular Phishing Exercises

Most people fall prey to phishing attacks because they either weren’t aware of their existence or because they didn’t know how to spot one. 

In your organization, there are no doubt some people who have side-stepped these attacks, but in order to make sure that everyone is aware of how to protect against them, it’s best to conduct a company-wide simulated phishing attack. 

This is a type of exercise where your employees are intentionally sent emails that look like phishing attacks, which helps your employees become familiar with what these emails look like. 

If you conduct the phishing exercise and your employees fail to spot the mock emails, no worries!

A phishing exercise is a perfect place for your employees to mess up so that they can learn from their mistakes without running the risk of giving up any valuable company information. 

In addition to conducting regular phishing exercises, your company can utilize email protection software that’s capable of not only detecting phishing emails but also quarantining them so that your employees are less likely to encounter them. 

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Passwords are the front-line of defense for your email accounts, but why stop there? 

By utilizing MFA, you ensure that no one is able to break into your business applications or accounts unless two or more pieces of evidence are used to indicate that it is you, not an impersonator, who is trying to get into your account. 

If you have an email account with Google then you’ve likely already experienced MFA in action whenever they send you a certain code to enter in before allowing you access to your account, sometimes even texting the code directly to your cell phone. 

Quarantine and Remediate Messages

Your email accounts undoubtedly receive unwanted messages, from simply inappropriate content to more nefarious content like phishing links. Even if you get your employees training on how to spot and avoid these emails, you still don’t want them sitting in your inboxes. 

For this reason, it’s good practice to quarantine nefarious emails. Your IT team or MSP could do this manually, but it’s more efficient to utilize a program that does the job on autopilot. 

Once the emails have been quarantined, the next step is to remediate them via deletion. 

Preview Shortened URLs Before Opening Them

Shortened URLs often come from bit.ly or goo.gl. They’re convenient for compressing long URLs down to a reasonable size, but they tend to mask the destination of the URL.  Before clicking on such links, make sure to preview the shortened URL before following it.

To not do this is to risk being taken to a spoofed domain or getting your device infected with malware. 

Enforce Solid Password Policies 

Ultimately, when it comes to password protection, if your people aren’t prepared, your company isn’t prepared. This is especially true for some of the more sophisticated social engineering attacks. 

In order to keep your entire organization on the same page regarding password security, you should create and enforce solid password protocols. 

This can involve things like imposing a minimum password length, creating an account lockout policy that triggers after a certain number of login attempts and requires employees to use special characters in their passwords. 

One of the most important email protocols for your employees to understand is that they should not share their passwords with other employees—even the IT team. 

Email Fraud Defence 

Software solutions exist that help your business authentic legitimate emails and block fraudulent messages before they even have a chance to reach your inboxes. If you’re working with an MSP, be sure to ask them about this service.

Are Your Organization’s Emails Secure? 

Email security is a subject that can take up a decent amount of your company’s time and energy. 

Without a dedicated IT team to maintain the security of your work email accounts, you run the risk of unwanted third parties taking a peek into your communications or manipulating your employees to accidentally give up critical business data. 

At Commprise, we believe not only in providing solutions to these problems but in personalizing said solutions to your company, rather than slapping on cookie-cutter patches to your unique cybersecurity problems. With our Managed Security Services, you get top-of-the-line cybersecurity solutions that automate much of the tedious work that you’d normally need to do to counter the slew of email attacks that barrage businesses like yours.