If you’re the owner or CEO of an SMB, you probably have plenty of balls to juggle. So many, in fact, that the one labeled ‘cybersecurity’ is all too easily dropped and forgotten. Understandable, but risky: the cost associated with data loss is substantial, from regulatory issues and reputation damage to financial loss. In this blog we look at the specific challenges SMBs face when it comes to business email security, identify five key factors to prevent data loss, and propose an easy, all-encompassing solution to help your company thrive.

The surprising causes of data loss

When you run a small business, it can be hard to know where to start with cybersecurity. Like most business owners, you are probably aware of the risks of phishing, identity theft and internet fraud, but you might not have the technical capabilities or the budget to adequately manage these risks. Perhaps you simply assume that your email client offers enough protection, that anything suspicious will land in the spam folder, and that your employees are ‘savvy enough’ to know when not to click a link.

Well, we don’t want to discourage you, but did you know that the leading cause of data loss is not external attacks, but simply human error? That’s right: according to the ICO, things like misuse of the Bcc function, sending emails to the wrong person, or simply forgetting to redact sensitive information in messages and attachments make up the bulk of data incidents. And, while not quite as dramatic in nature as hacking by cybercriminals, the consequences of these ‘small’ mistakes can be just as big.

The question remains, how do you effectively remedy human error as well as manage other business email security risks within the means of an SMB. You’re unlikely to have the time or budgets for extensive training, multiple costly security solutions or even hiring a dedicated employee. Below, we’ll look at some of the most important technical challenges with business email security and suggest a solution that doesn’t break the bank or require extensive technical knowledge.

The 5 essential elements of robust business email security

When it comes to business email security, there are five important elements to take into account:

1. Encryption
2. File transfer 
3. Human error prevention
4. Email recall
5. Security awareness

Let’s look in more detail at these topics and explore how your business can integrate them.

1. Encryption and 2FA

All too often, people wrongly assume that the most common business email clients, like M365 or Outlook, are inherently safe. The truth is that they don’t have sufficient security measures in place to ensure that sensitive information is protected against unauthorised access. They generally use TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption, but this type of encryption is opportunistic in nature: if the recipient’s server does not support TLS, the email will be sent unencrypted. 

Whenever sensitive data is transmitted, enforced encryption is essential to ensure the email cannot be intercepted or accessed by the wrong person, even once it has landed in the recipient’s inbox. Additionally, two-factor authentication may be called for to add an extra layer of security. Unfortunately, in many cases this requires the use of clunky external platforms that are annoying to both your staff and your recipients. We’ll look at a better solution below. 

2. Large file transfer

Data leaks happen not just from content in the body of an email, but also from attachments. If your email client encrypts attachments at all, this is often limited to small file sizes - often 20MB. For larger file transfer, you need to make use of third-party platforms, which are even less transparent in terms of security. Enhancing your email client so that it can handle large file transfer and enforced encryption is therefore essential to ensure your attachments are secure. 

3. Human error prevention

Humans make mistakes, that part is unpreventable: they might be overly busy, distracted, or sleep-deprived (or all of the above). What technology can do, though, is alert those humans to mistakes before they press send. Traditionally, this error detection happens based on keyword lists, but that’s like trying to catch water in a leaky bucket. More thorough solutions exist – we’ve got a suggestion for one at the end of this article.

4. Email recall

Even with the best tools for human error prevention, the occasional mistake can slip through the net. Most email clients don’t offer a way to revoke your email once it’s been sent: once the message has gone out, the data incident has occurred. Reliable email recall with the ability to check if the message has been opened or not can turn these major data breaches into a non-event – but your standard email programme doesn’t offer that option. 

5. Security awareness

More than anything else, the level of awareness of the risks inherent in email and data loss among your staff is a key factor in how likely data leaks are to occur. If your staff have security at the forefront of their minds, they are simply less likely to make mistakes. While staff training is an important factor, if you train your employees once or twice a year, they’re not too likely to remember and incorporate that training on a daily basis. But if you give them tools that actively alert them of issues and empower them to correct mistakes, the learning is actively integrated into their daily workflow.

This is also why SEGs – Security Email Gateways – are not a foolproof solution to protect your business email security. Many companies rely on these gateways, which do incorporate some of the points mentioned above. They stop emails that contain certain keywords from being sent, but this is likely to result in false positives or negatives. More importantly, they provide no user interaction, making it hard for employees to understand why their emails aren’t being delivered or to proactively correct mistakes. There are better, more granular tools available to protect your business email.

Zivver Secure Email: All-in-one business email security for SMBs

With so many elements to business email security, you might think adequate protection will be a costly and cumbersome affair. Luckily, we have an all-encompassing solution that tackles everything from encryption to email recall and human error prevention – and integrates it directly into your existing email client. 

Zivver Secure Email is built to support compliance, instil robust data protection into every sensitive email and, above all, for ease of use. It integrates unobtrusively with your existing email setup and empowers your employees to turn on encryption or 2FA in a few clicks, to recall emails or set expiry dates on emails and files, and to send encrypted attachments up to 5TB. It alerts users of potential mistakes and empowers them to correct these with ease, keeping the perfect balance between productivity and safety. 

Powered by AI, Zivver Secure Email is adaptable to the specific needs of your company, supporting compliance with data protection laws relevant to your sector. It’s also easy to use for your recipients and doesn’t require them to create an account or log in at all. That way, you can truly put security first without ever having to put your stakeholders second.

Intrigued? Learn more about Zivver.