Email marketing was developed to fulfill the aim of communication between individuals, And it has yet to be tuned to provide total data security.
Despite data insecurity, it is still a commonly used channel of communication. In particular, it is also the major instrument to assist the sharing material of numerous firms and organizations.
Email is commonly a method for transferring client and project data between firms. Or confirm bill payment, even provide password and login user…etc. Lots of vital, sensitive information. To prevent the possibility of data loss, email service providers have lately concentrated on establishing more secure email systems.
Email security is the method to secure personal information and crucial data. In this article, I will explore what email security is. How does email protection work? And many more.
First, how does the email sending process happen? From there, it would be simple to envision how hackers take email data and how to secure your email.
How Does Email Sending Work?
The email sending process contains numerous phases, like real letter delivery. The mail is given to the carrier, goes through various post offices in different areas, and forwards through several mail carriers… until it reaches the receiver.
Similarly, when you send an email, the message will likewise be routed via a succession of servers until it reaches the receiver.
A technique called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), short is responsible for transmitting email. And POP3 or IMAP technology is in charge of delivering it. This is a difficult and sometimes slow procedure that hackers frequently abuse.
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Techniques And Risk Factors Around Email
Threats often exploit technological and human vulnerabilities. To fool people, hackers use spoofing techniques to create fake email addresses. It also uses social engineering to impersonate a brand.
In other words, criminals exploit technology and the human element at the same time. In fact, the human factor is known to be the weakest link in the information security chain. Therefore, it is very difficult to control or predict.
Let’s dig deeper into common email threats and techniques.
Fake
Spoofing refers to spoofing people’s names, addresses, emails, and websites. This technique is widely used in email threats like phishing and spam. When using this form, hackers are trying to impersonate a person or company you know.
Imagine that someone is impersonating a top executive at your company to send malicious emails to the finance department demanding payment of bills.
Social engineering
Social engineering is a threat that allows hackers to fool and convince people. Example: Before sending a malicious email to a business, the cybercriminal will find out what the entity does; Who the employees are; whether it is related to any company…etc
Email breach
Stealing email accounts is a form of hijacking. For example, your company is infected with malware and granted access to the CEO’s mailbox. In this case, the hacker can read and send emails as if he were the CEO. This type of scam is called BEC (Business Email Compromise).
Email servers and domain hijacking
Hackers can also take over the domain and Mail Servers. After hacking your server with malware, cybercriminals will gain access to all the information transmitted via email. Additionally, they will be able to use your domain to scam employees, customers, and partners.
So, you know a little more about how email is exploited. The big challenge with email security is that criminals are getting smarter daily. They are always developing new hacking techniques. To keep your business secure, you need email security. So what is email security?
What Is Email Security?
Email security refers to protecting email communication from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or destruction. Securing your email addresses, several strategies for keeping sensitive information in email messages and accounts secure from illegal access, loss, or compromise.
Email is a typical technique of distributing malware, spam, and phishing assaults, employing phishing messages to convince recipients to divulge personal information, open attachments or click URLs to install—malware on the victim’s system. It is also a common route for attackers attempting to sneak into company networks and compromise important corporate data.
Email security is vital for both personal and commercial email accounts, and there are several precautions businesses could take to increase their email security.
Types of Email Security
You may safeguard your email communications by using a variety of email security methods. Let’s focus on a few of the more typical ones.
Encryption
The plaintext is transformed into ciphertext via encryption to prevent unwanted access to sensitive information. Only the receiver with the decryption key can read an encrypted email since the text is jumbled into an unreadable format.
Authentication
Verifying the sender and receiver of an email message’s identity is the authentication process. Digital signatures and certificates are used to confirm that the email is authentic and not a phishing effort.
filters that block spam and viruses
malware tools called anti-virus and anti-spam filters are used to identify and eliminate unwanted emails and hazardous malware from your mailbox. They assist in avoiding malware infections, phishing scams, and other security risks.
Using two factors to authenticate
A security precaution known as two-factor authentication (2FA) requires users to submit two forms of identification to access their email accounts. This may involve something the person has and something they know, such as a password, mobile phone, or security token.
Why Do You Need Email Security?
An individual’s bank and social media accounts are generally registered with an email account. Therefore, hackers typically take advantage of security gaps to breach emails to gather this information. Besides, after accessing, bad objects borrow the account owner’s name to send phishing emails or accomplish ill objectives.
For organizations, email is a means to keep essential papers concerning corporate plans or clients. This is a “delicious bait” for individuals who purchase and sell data for negative objectives. If such information is leaked to the outside, it will greatly affect the firm. For example, losing access to email accounts significantly affects productivity.
How To Better Secure Email?
Realizing the significance of email to corporate operations, many firms are increasingly interested in the security of business email. Currently, corporate email is commonly protected using the following two methods:
• Protect email using SEG. secure gateway
SEG (Secure Email Gateway) is a network security technology that operates as a barrier to prevent email attacks. The security gateway will identify malicious emails delivered to the mailbox using the following mechanisms: spam filter, artificial intelligence, IP, respectable address list, Blacklist, and anti-virus engine.
Read more: What is SEG?
• Protect email with DMARC
DMARC is a corporate email security technology that provides email authentication. By scanning and checking, this protocol will enable users to know if the incoming email is real. At the same time, DMARC will also assist in preventing hackers from utilizing commercial domain names for fraud or fraud.
What Should Users/Employees Do To Protect Email
To secure email against attackers, you may resort to the following basic methods:
• To secure your email, don’t use a single email account
Using many email accounts at the same time might confuse hackers, making it hard for them to tell which is your primary email. There are various email service providers, such as Gmail, Outlook, and yahoo mail.
A distinct email service may protect each website account, domain management, and social network. However, you also need to change the security for each email account because Outlook email security is significantly different from Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
• To secure your email, use complicated and hard-to-guess passwords
Complex passwords are the response many professionals provide when asked in reality. This is also one of the simplest and easiest methods to secure email.
Password is deemed secure when it contains whole letters, numbers, and special characters and is not near personal information. In addition, you should also update your email password often.
• To secure your email beware of phishing scams.
Phishing is a strategy used by hackers to gain personal information. They frequently imitate huge website emails to trick people, so you must be extremely cautious.
• To secure your email limit click on files or links linked to emails
Malicious software might lurk behind links, attachments in spam emails, advertising, or emails from unknown senders. To secure your email, you should avoid clicking on such material.
• To secure your email, use 2-layer email security
2-factor security (2fa) secures your email by adding a step to the standard sign-in procedure. With this feature, email will be more secure. Despite knowing the password, infiltrating will take a lot of work.
• To secure your email, avoid connecting to public wifi
Spyware may access personal information via internet trading accounts. The chance of being attacked by hackers is larger if you browse insecure Wifi networks.
Most Common Email Security Protocol
Before studying today’s popular email security protocols, you need to comprehend the concept:
What is an email security protocol?
Understandably, these are mechanisms that assist secured email from outside assaults. At the time, you will have the following options:
• SSL/TLS Protocol
SSL and TLS are application layer protocols that offer a secure framework that interacts with SMTP to safeguard users’ emails. When a user sends or receives mail, these protocols utilize TCP to establish a handshake with the email server.
• Digital Certificate Protocol
Digital Certificate is an encryption technology that encrypts email using cryptography. Authentication enables users to receive and send encrypted emails using a specified encryption key.
• SPF protocol
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an authentication system against domain spoofing. SPF will allow the server to establish the origin of the domain, eliminating the use of a domain to mask its genuine identity.
How the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) protocol works
• DKIM. protocol
DomainKeys Identified Mail is an anti-spoofing system that assures email security in transit. DKIM will use the digital signature to validate the sender domain.
• DMARC. protocol
DMARC is an SPF and DKIM authentication method to prevent fraudulent activities from a given domain. At the same time, this protocol also helps avoid header spoofing.
• S/MIME . protocol
S/MIME is a technology that helps encrypt email information before transmitting it. Only the receiver can decode the communication.
• PGP / OpenPGP . Protocol
PGP is an end-to-end encryption protocol, and OpenPGP is its open-source version. These protocols may be incorporated into email security with Gpg4Win.org, Gpgtools.org, GnuPG.org applications…
Conclusion
Email is one of the most used forms of communication. However, hackers are also prone to exploit them as bait to steal data, transmit malware, or infiltrate enterprises.
Adopting different email security solutions and awareness training on online frauds and risks can help keep your organization and data secure. I hope the preceding post has helped you answer “What is email security ?” and know additional strategies to safeguard your email.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are some common email security threats?
Phishing assaults, virus infestations, spam, spoofing, and unauthorized access are typical email security issues.
How does encryption work in email?
A mathematical procedure is used to transform plaintext into ciphertext during encryption. Only the receiver with the decryption key can read an encrypted email since the text is jumbled into an unreadable format.
How can email phishing scams be avoided?
By being wary of emails from unfamiliar senders, avoiding clicking on dubious links or downloading attachments, and turning on anti-phishing filters in your email program, you may thwart email phishing assaults.
What is two-factor authentication?
To access their email account, users must provide two different forms of identity thanks to the security precaution known as two-factor authentication. This may involve something the person has and something they know, such as a password, mobile phone, or security token.
