These days, it’s not simply enough to install anti-virus protection and assume that it will take care of all your email security requirements. It won’t! You need to implement a series of email best practices to make sure your email system isn’t susceptible to an attack that could compromise your company’s important information.

Here are 5 steps you can take today to improve the security of your business emails and reduce the likelihood of attacks from happening in the first place.

Make sure your preferred anti-virus platform is installed across ALL your devices
This is particularly important if you manage remote teams or home workers with various endpoint devices, including laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Be meticulous about adding every work gadget to your plan, as this will help to reduce the likelihood of malware or ransomware wreaking havoc with your IT.

Install a Secure Email Gateway (SEG)
These kinds of servers look after your organisation’s internal mail servers. They inspect all your incoming and outgoing emails for malicious content before it reaches your systems. They are particularly good at protecting recipients’ devices from spam, viruses, and denial of service attacks (which are designed to shut down your machine or network so nobody can access them).

Microsoft Defender, which is built into Office 365, is one of the most popular SEGs, but there are plenty more solutions out there that might be a better fit for your needs. Contact ECOM UK if you need help finding the right software package.

Consider encrypting your emails
Alongside installing an email gateway, encryption is by far one of the most effective ways to keep your messages secure. Encryption uses algorithms to stop anyone from reading your emails unless they have the correct ‘keys’.

Ideally, you need to opt for an end-to-end encryption service, which encrypts the data on your business devices so that only you and the intended recipient can see it. There are lots of encryption methods that rely on different means of protecting your information – so if you’re not sure which technology will best suit your security requirements, let us know and we’ll happily provide you with the most viable option.

Improve your email passwords
Are you asking your staff to change their passwords regularly? Are these said passwords strong enough to be guess-proof? If the answer is ‘no’ to either of these questions, it’s time to improve your email password management strategy.

Interestingly, it’s often not the complexity of a password that indicates its strength – it’s the length of the combination. This is because complicated phrases are so difficult to remember that they will often be written down for future reference or saved in your staff’s desktops or phones for easy access – which means, in theory, anybody could get their hands on them! If you want to follow best practices, encourage your teams to come up with passwords that are at least 8 characters in length and contain one number, one symbol, and a mixture of upper case and lowercase letters.

There’s usually no need to request that your employees change their passwords every 30, 60 or 90 days. However, do ask staff to change their login details straightaway if you think (or your anti-virus software suspects) that your passwords have been compromised.

Teach everyone how to recognise phishing emails
If you follow us on social media, you’ll have seen that we recently posted about the dangers of email phishing. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s the practice of sending out emails to unsuspecting recipients that look like they are from a credible source but are in fact from scammers who are ‘fishing’ for your personal and sensitive data.

By far the easiest way to reduce the risk of losses from phishing is to train your staff on what phishing emails look like, as part of your wider cybersecurity training. You should encourage everyone to hover over an email link before they click on it, too; if the URL path isn’t the same as the link in its bare format, it could well be a trap.