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10 things you should be doing to protect your company against email risks

Posted by Deborah on November 2, 2007 in Email security, Email policy, Email compliance

Last week we discussed the top 6 email risks that companies face. So what can we do to protect ourselves against these risks? Here are 10 things that you should be doing to protect your company:

#1: Write an email policy. If you do not already have one in place, the first thing you must do is to create an email policy. This is necessary to educate users but also to ensure that employees are aware that the company is monitoring their emails. This will protect your company against possible employee lawsuits regarding invasion of privacy. Have your users sign the email policy to confirm that they have read and understood the regulations. For more information on what to include in your Email policy, got to the blog article Ten points to include in your email-policy.

#2: Train users; Regularly train users in applying the email policy. Help users send effective emails by informing them of best practices, explain that offensive jokes and remarks can be much more harmful than they seem and stress that employees that witness abuse of the email system must report this to their supervisor. This will boost productivity and help avoid many of the email risks.

#3: Install anti-virus software. Even though nowadays almost all companies have virus software scanning files on the server and client machines, not all companies do the same for email. Be safe rather than sorry and scan all your incoming and outgoing emails for viruses too.

#4: Install a spam filter. There are many spam filters out there and most of them will do a good job at blocking spam. However, not all spam filters will allow your users to review their own spam mails, offer customization per user or allow for detailed message tracking.

#5: Content check emails; Even though you have educated your users, you cannot assume that all employees will adhere to the policy. Therefore you need to install software that can check all emails for inappropriate content. For internal mails this is to protect users from an unsafe work environment. For external mails this is to protect the reputation of your company and to avoid libel lawsuits. You must also check attachments and use word filtering to avoid confidential data leaving the company. For instance you can block external emails containing Social Security Numbers, credit card details or patient information.

#6: Add a disclaimer; In order to disclaim against company liability, ensure confidentiality and comply with regulatory rules you must add a disclaimer to all sent emails. Disclaimers must be added to internal mails as well as external mails. It is also a good idea to add a different disclaimer for internal mails to specifically address the unsafe work environment issue. For instance in your internal mails you can include a line saying ‘Employees are expressly prohibited to make offensive, disruptive or defamatory statements.’

#7: Compress attachments; by compressing attachments you can reduce the size of files by up to 95 percent. Needless to say this will save bandwidth and network storage.

#8: Limit personal emails; Personal emails not only cause loss of productivity, they can be the source of viruses and bandwidth hogging attachments. You might want to allow some personal use, but in your email policy you must stipulate in exact terms what is allowed and what is not.

#9: Archive emails; Many industries now face regulations that require them to archive emails for a number of years, including the health care, legal and financial industry. Fail to archive your emails and your company might face substantial fines. In addition, you need to be able to quickly search and access messages in case you need to retrieve emails on a court order.

#10: View reports on usage; Check how the email policy is being implemented by looking at email usage reports. Find out what attachments users are sending and their size. View reports on email policy violations and determine which rules are being violated and by which users. On the basis of this information you can adjust your email policy, tweak your email filtering software, or schedule further trainings to re-iterate certain email policy rules.