There’s a lot to like about email. It’s fast, cheap, easy and reliable. With the touch of a button, you can simultaneously send messages or documents to dozens of contacts located just about anywhere on the planet. You can also use it to sort, file and filter important personal and professional information.
It isn’t as private as you might think, however.
We tend to think of email as a fairly direct form of communication — you compose a message, hit send and it travels directly from your computer to your intended recipient — but that’s not the case. In truth, a single email crosses several potentially untrustworthy systems before reaching its destination.
A typical email architecture might involve a dozen or more servers. A message goes from the sender’s computer to mail servers that transfer, store and send messages using different client programs. Those servers then transfer messages through other mail servers and different proxy servers before they reach the recipient’s inbox.
At any point along that journey, there is the potential for unauthorized access. If messages aren’t encrypted, the contents are perfectly readable by anyone, whether unintended recipients or malicious actors.
Beyond Encryption
Even encryption doesn’t ensure privacy. It can help protect messages and accounts from unauthorized access, but there is still the potential for third parties to access information you intended to remain private.
In fact, most third-party providers scan emails. While that’s often for beneficial purposes such as identifying spam or malicious attachments, some providers also scan for metadata they then share with advertisers. For example, Google notes in its Gmail terms of service that it will collect information and use it to offer “relevant search results and ads.”
Email privacy is an increasingly important issue for companies. More than 40 states have either passed laws or are evaluating legislation protecting consumer data privacy, and most of these bills specifically require companies to treat email content and addresses as personal information that must be protected.
Faced with increasing regulatory liabilities, more organizations are looking for simple solutions that ensure the privacy of their email communications. Email Message Privacy from Zix offers such protection.
The Zix solution uses its own secure, off-network message exchange system. In this way, email communications bypass the conventional mix of servers, routers and messaging protocols that create multiple potential vulnerabilities. All messages, contents and attachments are cryptographically hashed and delivered to intended recipients via the Zix Secure Cloud. Additionally, messages in the Zix cloud are encrypted at rest using AES 256-bit encryption.
Easy Does It
Users need no special skills or processes to encrypt emails — they simply create a message, hit “send” and the Zix content filters take care of the rest. Data loss prevention (DLP) filters provide an additional layer of protection. It’s just as easy on the receiving end — recipients simply open encrypted messages like regular email.
The Zix solution also makes file-sharing a safer and easier process. Email once was the most common method of sharing files, but email attachments have become the primary vehicle for malware delivery. What’s more, email size limits often make it impossible to send large files with high-resolution images and videos.
Zix addresses such limitations with the Secure Large File module for its email platform. It enables authorized users to send large attachments of any file type up to 100GB per message to any recipient. Additionally, rights management features enhance data privacy by enabling users to restrict forwarding, limit viewing time and recall documents after they have been shared.
Email remains an essential business communication tool, but privacy issues could cause companies to run afoul of new data protection laws and government and industry regulations. Give us a call to learn more about implementing Email Message Privacy from Zix to reduce your exposure.
