A quarter of UK businesses do not have an email security solution in place, despite such recent high-profile email related data breaches as Sony and WHSmith.
That is according to a survey by Echoworx, makers of OneWorld, a smart platform for message encryption. The survey looked into employee usage of email security technologies for sharing sensitive corporate data. Beyond the quarter admitting they had no email security solution in place, 57 per cent of respondents admitted that they found their current email security solutions cumbersome and difficult to use. This increased even further among more mature employees within the workplace, with 63 per cent aged 45 and over finding their current email security solutions more challenging to navigate.
Greg Aligiannis, Senior Director of Security at Echoworx, said: “It’s certainly worrying that over a quarter of UK businesses are leaving their corporate emails totally unprotected. It highlights a very clear lack of awareness of email security and the potential implications that this could have on a business. For those companies that do have a secure email solution already in place, it’s vital that it’s transparent to the user. If security solutions are too complicated, employees will almost certainly find a less secure workaround.”
The study went onto reveal that only 20 per cent of employees are worried about financial fines as a result of a data breach. This is all likely to change with the implementation of the EU’s new Data Protection Regulation (DPR), likely to be implemented in early 2016. It includes measures to protect citizens’ data and to restrict its use by businesses and intelligence services. At present, financial fines of two per cent are being proposed as a sanction for companies undergoing a data breach, but MEPs are expected to push for an increase to five per cent.
Greg continued, “Security of sensitive information must be considered to be a priority for everyone regardless of whether you work in the public or private sector. Encryption applied to email and other data lets organisations stay one step ahead if and when a security lapse occurs. It automatically applies policy to stop data leaks before they start which is especially important now that cybercriminals are developing increasingly sophisticated tactics to infiltrate corporate networks.”
The research, which polled 1,000 financial services professionals across the UK, was carried out by OnePoll on behalf of Echoworx in April 2015.
