Privacy Rights Clearinghouse tracked “2,280 data breaches and over 512 million related compromised records” between 2005 and 2010. Scholars who have analyzed this sample of data breaches have reported that the number of breaches has increased annually, as well as the number of records that have been compromised. However, they did note that increases in data breaches were not consistent over time.
One of the most common ways in which data breaches occur is through company emails. As emails are a ubiquitous form of communication in modern companies, there is a great deal of room for this method of communication to be exploited by malicious individuals. Emails are presumed to be a secure channel of communication, and many important pieces of information are shared through company emails. That is why many companies employ some form of data protection tool for their company email accounts. Not all of these tools are created equally, and some are more efficient than others in effectively protecting emails from data breaches.
Forrester Study
The coronavirus pandemic led many companies to use a work from the home model, which added further complications to securing email communications. The Forrester Opportunity Snapshot: A Custom Study Commissioned by Echoworx has revealed that 77% of respondents to the survey acknowledged that they needed to increase their email security. The study also found that the email protection tools which are currently on the market consume a lot of resources. This is the case because they are challenging to understand and use as well as lack automation features. More than 50% of the respondents to the survey, which informed the report, claimed that they expected that customer trust would improve and breaches would decrease with superior data protection tools.
62% of respondents believe that the current data protection tools which their company has in place are efficient in securing important data and stopping data from being compromised. However, 77% of respondents who are responsible for making decisions regarding digital security within their company think that the level of protection for emails needs to be improved. As such, 63% of respondents’ companies are implementing or increasing the level of security on their email communications. A mere 3% of those surveyed are removing or decreasing the level of security that their company has in place.
While the drive amongst many data security professionals is high to increase their level of data protection, 90% have one or more issues with their current data protection tools. The most common issues which plague data security tools are that email encryption tools are not automated, and they are resource heavy and challenging to implement effectively. The unfortunate reality is that if an email security tool is too unwieldy, employees may find ways to work around this tool which will ultimately decrease security and place important company documentation at risk.
Aside from improving the security of data in a company, efficient data protection tools also have other benefits which they can offer employees and employers alike. The primary benefit which respondents expected to receive from improved data protection was increased trust from their customers, with 60% of respondents expecting this result. 53% of respondents have the expectation that improved data protection tools would increase their revenue due to fewer data breaches and more efficient security measures. 40% of those surveyed held that implementing more efficient security solutions would improve the experience of their employees. This will increase productivity and reduce the frustration that employees experience when dealing with inefficient, manual data protection tools.
Echoworx is a company that is leading the way in email data protection and security. They have over a million users and are entirely focused on email encryption. They use the best technology available combined with an intuitive user interface to make their data protection tools both efficient and user-friendly.
Final Thoughts
Email data protection tools are an important part of a company’s overall digital security strategy especially given the indispensable nature of emails to any company’s operations. Many of these tools are not adequately addressing the needs of companies as they are not automated and difficult to learn to use effectively. Most companies acknowledge that they need to improve on their email data protection to improve security as well as customer trust. One notable email data protection tool is Echoworx, as it is both efficient and effective at preventing email-related data breaches.
