Securing E-mail - The Best Ways to Lower Your Risks

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By Gregg Larson

RISMEDIA, June 20, 2008-E-mail is one of the most dangerous activities any of us does online. It’s easy for e-mail account access to be compromised and for sensitive information to get into the wrong hands. What can be done to lower these risks?

First, find out-by looking at your e-mail settings or talking to your network staff or ISP-if you are using an unencrypted protocol (POP or IMAP) to get your e-mail. If so, then your login information can be captured and your e-mail can be intercepted.

If you are using a public network, you can encrypt all your network traffic by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). If your company has a firewall that includes VPN capabilities and you connect to it before checking your e-mail, then the traffic can’t be “sniffed” as easily.

You can also encrypt your e-mail and attachments in other ways. While this doesn’t stop people from “sniffing” an insecure e-mail protocol, it can stop people from reading e-mail and opening attachments that are sent to them by accident.

The next tool in your security arsenal is to use company policy to educate employees on safer e-mail behaviors. The policy can include instructions not to use e-mail to distribute offensive materials, not to send or forward SPAM, not to send confidential information via e-mail and when to use encryption, and not to open attachments from untrusted sources-or even from trusted sources without phone verification.

None of the above steps address SPAM and the tremendous threat of malicious software that can be attached to e-mail. At a time when spammers are becoming ever more sophisticated at evading anti-spam tools, making the right technology choices is more important than ever.

Gregg Larson is the CEO of Clareity Security.

For more information, please visit www.ClareitySecurity.com.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.

For more ways to protect your company, don’t miss:

• Security - Are You PCI Compliant?  
  Limiting Internet Use to Protect Your Company  
  When Your Web Site Betrays Your Client

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