In the corporate environment,
email is used for
communicating sensitive
information and transferring
sensitive documents. Without
being aware of the risk,
employees frequently send
sensitive information and
documents unprotected across
the internet to coworkers and
business partners.
An added risk is the email
sitting unprotected on a
company's servers or an
employee's workstation where
it can be viewed or accessed
by unauthorized individuals.
While many email programs have
security features built in,
they are not commonly used due
to maintenance requirements
and their complexity.
The growth of the Internet has
provided unprecedented
opportunities for interaction
and the sharing of data
between corporations, their
partners and their customers.
However, until recently these
advantages have come with a
great element of risk to the
integrity of this information.
Since confidentiality has been
at risk during email
communications, the Federal
Government has mandated that
all publicly traded companies
must keep all electronic
transactions secure.
Virsecure satisfies these
tough security standards for
electronic data interchange;
during its transmission and
while in storage and is ideal
for e-Statements and e-Bills.
The threat of emails
containing malicious or
offensive content
Emails carrying sensitive
information, or unsolicited
mail messages sent out by
corporate users are not the
only problem a company has to
tackle with regard to
employees' email use. Emails
sent by staff containing
racist, sexist or other
offensive material could prove
equally troublesome, not to
mention embarrassing - and
expensive!
This factor hit the headlines
during the much-publicized
antitrust case against
Microsoft Corp., when the US
government presented as
evidence the contents of
emails written by top
Microsoft executives
describing plans to topple
competitors. On a similar
note, Chevron recently had to
pay $2.2 million to settle a
lawsuit resulting from an
email message bearing sexist
contents.
Protect yourself against the
threat of information leaks.
Organizations often fail to
acknowledge that there is a
greater risk of crucial data
being stolen from within the
company rather than from
outside.
Various studies have shown how
employees use email to send
out confidential corporate
information. Be it because
they are disgruntled and
revengeful, or because they
fail to realize the
potentially harmful impact of
such a practice, employees use
email to share sensitive data
that was officially intended
to remain in-house.
FBI statistics, for example,
reveal that among Fortune 500
companies, most data thefts in
1998 were by internal users.
Again, research results
carried in PC Week in March
1999 report that, out of 800
workers surveyed, 21-31%
admitted to sending
confidential information -
like financial or product data
- to recipients outside the
company by email. Ten per cent
of those surveyed disclosed
that they had received email
containing
company-confidential
information.
