Email is one of the most significant cybersecurity risks for companies of any size. Hackers are always finding new methods to attack email, and the inability of people to adhere to the best practices in business email security for enterprises to compromise organizations defenses.

Email is often used to enter into corporate networks to distribute malware, like ransomware spam, viruses, and ransomware, and other threats, such as scams and phishing. Here we will discuss what effect you business can faces if you do not manage business email security properly. 

What is the Effect of Phishing Scams on a Company?

Companies worldwide suffer huge losses in revenue, reputation, fines from regulatory agencies and more. With their flawless cybersecurity patches, even the biggest companies, such as Facebook and Google emails are hacked by cyber criminals and have suffered huge losses. 

The motivation behind these frauds isn’t limited to the theft of money, but something more vital is the information. So, you need to improve business email security. We will look into its serious effects on businesses.

  1. Reputation Damage

The base of your company is built on trust between you and your clients. They trust you with their data. However, if a phishing scam is discovered, all your data is revealed, including your company’s name and customers.

This affects your brand’s image in the eyes of customers or partners as well as employees. Therefore, the value of your brand is diminished, and so do the revenue you earn.

  1. Fines for Regulatory Compliance

The regulatory bodies could impose harsh financial penalties as a result of phishing attacks that expose the personal information of your employees and customers if it violates PCI and HIPAA.

Companies must pay millions to compensate employees and customers for stolen personal data in these instances. According to a report, businesses have suffered losses of $26 billion due to phishing scams from 2016 until 2019 and need to  protect business emails. 

  1. Customers are Losing Money

Data breaches significantly affect consumers and can make them anxious. They begin looking for other products or services they believe are more secure. Therefore, the victim organization cannot retain many customers in addition to financial losses.

They now have to build that confidence once more, which can be more difficult than it was previously. It also affects the trust of your investors, which can lower your company’s value. In 2018, when a data breach hit Facebook, the company’s evaluation was cut by $36 billion.

  1. Intellectual Property Loss

Phishing attacks and online scams contain a wealth of trade secrets and customer lists, valuable analysis, research data and the technology utilized or patent process, and numerous others. If such sensitive information is discovered to be misused could negatively impact the company in various ways.

Different Techniques to Enhance & Secure Business Email Security

  1. Enhance Cybersecurity Awareness by Train Your Staff 

The employees of the organization’s defence against email-based cyberattacks. Cybersecurity awareness training helps employees recognize a face, which lowers the cyber threat to an organization’s likelihood of protecting their data. To increase business email security, Employees need to know how to identify an attack and the consequences of failing to comply with the best practices in email security.

The company must train its employees on what phishing emails that could be malicious look like, and how to manage. 

  1. Use Two-factor Authentication (2FA)

Simply using passwords isn’t enough to protect yourself from cyber threats in the current security landscape. Instead, users must secure their email accounts using 2-factor authentication, also known as multi-factor security (MFA), which adds additional protection.

Through 2FA or MFA, when users sign in to an email address, they will receive an alert to complete the second procedure of verification to prove they are the person they claim they are.

  1. Manage Your Passwords Better

Protecting email accounts using MFA or 2FA users must also protect their passwords and business email security. Many people reuse passwords from multiple accounts, including email accounts, social networks, and popular news sites. This simplifies hackers’ lives as they only have to remember the password to access several accounts. Cybercriminals also use phishing methods to get users to change their passwords or to use fake websites to steal users’ login credentials.

Therefore, businesses must ensure that all employees have an individual password for each account and that they regularly update their passwords. 

  1. Regular Backups of Email Accounts

Backup is the key element in every field. If you have a backup of your emails then you can reuse the information or emails when you needed. At the same time, you can remove emails form your gmail after getting backup of your emails in your hard drive. Like, if you are regular users of any email client like Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, Yahoo mail, and etc. In that case, you can use Email Migration Tool to take backup of all email client, and you can schedule the next backup. You can use this method to enhance your business email security for a safer side. 

  1. Beware of Phishing Emails

Phishing attacks are among the major security threats facing companies. Criminals employ techniques to fool users into believing they are legitimate senders to get their account information, initiate fraudulent transactions, or even lure users to malicious websites via fake emails. Phishing emails are usually messages that pretend to come from service providers like banks and inform victims that they have an issue they need to address immediately.

  1. Secure Email

The encryption of emails ensures that messages are only read by the person for whom they were meant. Additionally, it allows email senders greater control, including revoking access to news sent to the wrong recipient and knowing when emails were read and who opened them.

The encryption of emails helps businesses avoid common threats like malware borne attacks via email and BEC or business emails that compromise (BEC). It also makes sure that sensitive email information is not intercepted or read by hackers.

  1. Don’t Use Business Email to send Personal Emails

While it might be tempting and beneficial for employees to use an account with a corporate email address for personal reasons, the best practice for  protect business email security in an email at work is to prevent this. Additionally, work-related emails shouldn’t be sent via personal accounts. Mixing personal and professional emails could lead to threats like spear Phishing. Mostly, we will use the Gmail email service for personal use and you can easily save Gmail emails as PDF

  1. Protect Against Data Leakage and Breaches

The goal of best practices for email security is to stop data leakage and security breaches. The above methods employee education, deployment of security software for email and encouraging users to protect their passwords, and using 2FA can keep attackers from attacking users and exploiting weaknesses.

Employees should also stay clear of other security threats, like accessing Wi-Fi via public or open networks and use programs such as virtual private networks, which encrypt browsing sessions.