Have you ever seen an email from someone you think you know and you open it up to find that it’s not from them, but from hackers?
That’s a common scenario that many businesses and their employees face every single day. Email security is still the biggest threat to your business. About 90% of people use email, which is a lot more than Twitter and Facebook. It’s so commonplace, hackers see nothing but opportunities to attack.
Even companies like Microsoft aren’t immune to email data breaches. With that kind of constant threat, it’s almost impossible to protect your business.
Fortunately, when you set up your Irish website there are things you can do to ensure that your email systems are safe and secure.
Keep reading for the top email security tips that will help you protect your data and your business.
Once you get a great hosting plan, you’ll need to set up your website. You can do that in one click using a Softaculous app.
Your next step is to set up an email address for your new website. You want to have an email that matches your domain name to give your business a professional look.
You can tie your email account to Gmail, Outlook, or another server. That will allow you to look at and organize your email from anywhere.
Once you have your email set up, your next job is to keep it secure.
Before we show you how to protect your account, let’s take a look at the most common types of email security threats for businesses.
Phishing is a term that’s used because hackers basically send out mass emails the same way a fisherman would throw a big net into the water. What (or who) ever bites, bites. It’s a numbers game.
These emails may contain threats such as “Change Your PayPal Password Now” or some other type of email supposedly from a company you trust, asking you to enter personal information like a password or credit card number.
When you click on the link and enter your information, it goes right to hackers. They can either use that information to hack into your accounts, or they can sell your information to others on the black market.
Spoofing occurs when a hacker sends an email from another email address that looks like yours or someone on your network.
For example, a hacker can send an email and make it look like it’s coming from your Irish website domain to an employee in your organization. That email asks your employee to wire money into a specific bank account.
Since the employee thinks that it’s from someone in your organization, they make the wire transfer. These types of emails aren’t limited to wire transfers. They may install malware on your computer, infecting your entire network.
Spoofing can apply to phone calls, websites, and even phone numbers. You need to be on guard and make sure that no one in your organization gives out sensitive data.
Malware can be defined as malicious software. This is the most common type of email security threat. This usually comes in the form of an email that asks for a user to click on a link.
That click can trigger a whole host of issues for your business. A hacker can install software to get access to your website or your network. Most of the time, you don’t even know it until it’s too late. In the meantime, the hacker can collect loads of data about your business and your customers.
The most common threats above have the ability to wreak havoc on your business. Cybercrime is growing faster in Ireland than anywhere, and companies stand to lose more than EUR 4 million when hit with an attack.
Here’s what you can do to make sure your email security is tight so this doesn’t happen to your business.
Most people will use one password that’s easy to remember across multiple sites and accounts. That can be a dangerous thing to do, especially if your password is easy to figure out, like “Irish123.”
You want to make sure that your email password is unique to your email account and strong.
Some are saying we should get rid of passwords altogether because they are such a cyber threat. That’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, keep your password strong and change it every three months.
With the likes of email security issues such as spoofing and phishing, it’s difficult to know who to trust with your email accounts.
A good guideline to follow is that if someone is asking you for financial information or other sensitive information such as passwords, don’t do it.
Some emails will go as far as to say that they have a password to one of your accounts and they’ll hack into them unless you pay them. This is another type of scam that hackers will use.
You’re likely to come across suspicious emails. If you ever doubt the source of an email, ask them before you click or enter personal information.
You may find that it was a malicious email after all.
Email security is important to your website host as much as it is to your business. If they have someone hacking into their systems, it could mean trouble for many businesses.
You want to make sure that you have a website hosting company that takes email security seriously. Host.ie offers high-level email security with Email Defense, which offers enterprise-level protection for businesses of every size.
Email encryption is an added layer of security that you can use to protect your emails as they travel long various networks.
If you have your website email address set up on Gmail or Outlook, it’s pretty easy to do that. For example, with Gmail, you can set your emails to Confidential Mode.
A VPN is a virtual private network. This is a good option to have if you use your email accounts on other networks. A VPN creates an encrypted connection that is difficult to hack when you’re using a public network.
You don’t want to get a false sense of security when you use a VPN, however. You don’t want to share sensitive data from a coffee shop, no matter how secure you think your connection is.
Believe it or not, your employees are the biggest threat to your company when it comes to cybersecurity. About 60% of cyber attacks are due to employees clicking on emails.
In other words, you have to train your employees about the latest email security threats, how to recognize them, and what procedures they should follow if they are suspicious.
The more your employees know and can recognize these threats, the more secure your email and your business will be.
Two-tier authentication is another layer of security to log into your email network. This measure goes beyond the typical username and password information that most systems require.
Two-tier authentication can come in the form of a text message with a code that a user has to enter in order to gain access to the account.
This ensures that the people who are accessing your email systems are authorized to do so.
You and your employees might find it easy to have all of your emails go to one account, but that can increase the risk to your email security.
What if a friend of an employee gets hacked and they unwittingly send emails to your employee? That employee can click on it thinking it’s from a friend and then your entire business systems are in jeopardy.
Your business should adhere to a strict email policy that keeps personal and business emails separate. It’s not that you don’t want employees to have fun. It’s that you have a business to protect.
Email security is one of the top threats to Irish businesses today. Whether you have customers locally in Ireland or across Europe, your job is to protect sensitive data from hackers, who can then sell it on the black market.
The way that hackers get into business systems is through email. The way to protect your email systems is to know what types of tricks hackers will use, educate your employees, and take measure to guard your email.
You can also sign up with a website host that offers top tier email security. Contact us today to learn more about our Email Defense offering and how it can help protect your email and your business.
