The short answer is no. If you send private or sensitive info via text or email, you could be putting your company at risk.
Security experts uncovered one of the largest data breaches of all time in January 2019. This included 772,904,991 emails and over 21 million passwords, according to Forbes magazine.
Texts are not encrypted by any major carrier except the Apple iPhone. Even then, your texts are only secure if both parties are using encryption. Email is equally vulnerable. Also, Apple users have been successfully hacked through fake iMessages with malicious code.
“I would like to be able to send encrypted emails to clients…There are several [encrypted email services] out there that are available. We used one ourselves for communicating some confidential or sensitive information to our clients,” according to Luis Alvarez, CEO of Alvarez Technology Group in Salinas, CA.
Paid encryption services are cumbersome and hard to use. There are several apps, such as What’s App, that allow you to transmit photos, videos, voice and text, and it’s encrypted end to end. Regardless, almost every email encryption system is something you have to pay for.
What is Email Encryption and Why Is it Important?
Email encryption services encrypt the content to protect sensitive information. This ensures that only the sender and recipient can read the message. Authentication ensures only the appropriate people have access to the data, preventing prying eyes from intercepting your private information. There are numerous reasons emails shouldn’t be encrypted.
- Encrypted email ensures login credentials, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other information is covered.
- It also secures web-based email such as Microsoft Outlook
The encryption keeps attackers at bay and prevents them from getting into your email accounts. Without encryption, hackers find a backdoor that can lead to email access.
Here’s how it work. A key is sent to you and the recipient. Without the key, access to the email is denied.
How Can a Security Assessment Help You Evaluate User Passwords?
“Our assessment will determine the strength of your current passwords, the validity of any firewalls in place, and any implementations of control lists that determine which users have access to sensitive information. By ensuring these security standards are properly configured and up-to-date, your systems will be that much more difficult to compromise,” according to Alvarez Technology Groups security website.
Contact us today for tips on getting employees to use stronger passwords or to schedule a scan of your system.
