Why Do Organisations Need an Email Security Policy?

Email continues to serve a substantial and necessary role in the majority of enterprises, despite the rise and growing popularity of instant messaging and collaboration platforms. It provides a simple method of reaching out to coworkers, customers, partners, and suppliers. It is without a doubt the most efficient and cost-effective method used for regular intra- and interorganizational communication worldwide.

Despite all of its benefits, your email system still poses serious security dangers that might be fatal to your business if not properly controlled and guarded. Email security policies are a high responsibility for IT security employees since threat actors continue to target email with multiple phishing and ransomware operations in an effort to gain or corrupt information for espionage or extortion purposes.

A formal organisational document called an email security policy describes how email systems should be used within an organisation. It details who and from whom emails may be sent or received, as well as the appropriate content for emails used for work.

An email security policy should be seen by all enterprises as a substantial risk prevention tool, to start. Your organisation needs an email security policy for a number of reasons, including:

An email policy’s signature from every employee demonstrates that they have read, understood, and agreed to its contents. The employee who sent the email will be held principally accountable for any harm or legal action brought against the firm as a result of the email if it violates the company’s email policy.

You can unwind if email is exclusively used for business-related communications because uncomfortable situations are unlikely to occur. However, the information in those emails is probably not appropriate to be discussed at work if your employees use work email to speak with friends or family.

If these emails are unintentionally sent to clients or partners, the company’s reputation may suffer. Your staff will maintain a professional demeanour and reduce the probability that personal emails will be sent to clients if you have an email policy in place that forbids the use of the company email system for personal purposes.

For employees who use email for non-work-related activities, it might be a distraction. Employees will be more focused and avoid the disruptions that come with sending and receiving personal email messages while at work if your email policy forbids using it for personal purposes.

It can also help with the construction of procedures to guarantee that all employees contribute to the firm’s brand or image if the email policy specifies the appropriate content for emails sent during working hours via the company email system. Setting guidelines for content and email usage results in a cohesive, complete view of the business, which helps the organisation stay true to its objective.

An email security policy should be written such that it is clear, informative, and contains enough information for all employees — technically smart and not — to understand its goals, their duties as users, and who to contact with any queries or complaints.
It ought to also contain:

Although every business is unique, email security standards ought to be the same everywhere. Why? Because the technology employed and the hazards associated with them are identical regardless of the enterprise’s size, industry, or level of experience. The audience for whom a policy is intended, however, influences how it is written. The actions outlined below can assist you in creating an appropriate email security policy.

Fortunately, firms do not need to start from scratch in this case. They can select from the several templates offered. For example, the SANS Institute offers templates for email retention and policy.

Organizations can expand on these pre-existing templates and alter them to meet their needs while changing the messaging to have a strong end-user effect by having a solid understanding of the business culture, size, and maturity level.

One of the various email security technologies that can be integrated to assist protect users from online dangers is encryption. Other options include spam filters, sandboxes, antivirus/malware protection software, and other security measures. The use of these tools in accordance with stated policy is advised.

Policies should include a way to confirm that employees have read and accepted the guidelines for using email. This typically takes the form of a required signature at the conclusion of the policy.

Create incident response procedures and training materials. In order to enforce proper email usage and facilitate speedy replies to user questions or incidents, protocols should be in place.

The majority of enterprises utilise email, thus threat actors routinely employ it to infiltrate systems and network resources. Humans need to be warned since they are the weakest link in the security system. Every organisation should adopt a security policy that upholds the highest standards for email security and cybersecurity. This makes a big contribution to worker compliance, phishing or ransomware attack prevention, and corporate safety.

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