You should use a clean, mobile-ready format for your corporate email. Reduce the amount of spam you receive by being cautious where you post your e-mail address. These practices have been developed and refined over the years to address the problems that arise when email is not used properly. More importantly, such training can also be used to inform employees about the types of security tactics used in the organization. That means employees must act as the last line of defense, and they should be aware of the dangers of phishing, malicious attachments and malicious links in their email. Requiring employees to change their passwords frequently is one tactic for password hygiene that has been reevaluated in recent years. Start my free, unlimited access. Disable the user’s email login; forward email to the user’s manager for as long as needed. You need to take a look at all the passwords and phrases people in your office use right now. Therefore, this email security best practice 2018 recommends businesses to … What are best practices for removing employees from our email and phone accounts in order to reduce the amount of time and money. 1. Add multifactor authentication if possible. Employee turnover is a part of business. Some links may display a recognizable domain name like www.amazon.com but in fact direct the user to some different, malicious, domain. Remember, successful communications require testing, tracking, and evaluating. This is still mostly true, and the same best practices for email security for employees from 1989 -- use strong passwords, block spammers, don't trust offers that are too good to be true and verify requests even from trusted entities -- still hold. Malicious attachments may be sent directly by an attacker to target individuals, and many such attachments can be blocked by antimalware software that detects the malicious source. 4. Conquer Inbox Overload with these Email Management Best Practices Try Smartsheet For Free Sometimes email can seem like an incredibly productive tool that has enabled new ways of working and collaborating , and sometimes it can seem like a soul-crushing misuse of time, and the biggest barrier to productivity today’s workforce face. Make the employee newsletter content relatable. Attackers also use international character sets to create malicious domains that appear to be those of well-known brands. The most conscientious employees can help their organizations improve email security by demanding better infrastructural protection provided by implementation of strategies such as enterprise-wide multifactor authentication, DMARC, email scanning and filtering. Use standard fonts and formatting. Emotional. Don’t open email attachments from unknown sources, and only open attachments from known sources after confirming the sender. However, malicious attachments can also be sent by trusted sources that have been exploited by attackers. Some examples come from reported decisions, the media, and personal experience. 2) Include the right people and state why they are on the email. However, employees can protect themselves by using 2FA wherever it is available. This could be a simple email stating that 30% of people … For example, employees can better understand which malicious messages might be caught -- and which might not be caught -- by email filtering systems. Hungry to learn more on how to effectively reach employees via email, check out these two articles: Facing a communication challenge, and want some advice? Start with eye-catching subject lines. Are your employees prepared for emergencies? This is mostly intuitive — some things just feel like an email, but if you are unsure, ask yourself if there’s any better way to contact the person. 3. When in doubt, employees should type the domains directly into their browsers, or just avoid using the link at all. Whenever possible, avoid email for anything that needs a response sooner than 24 hours. In 2021, CIOs will not only focus on providing greater access to healthcare but more equitable access. However, employees can choose to secure their own email and keep themselves safe from email attacks. 10 Best Practices When Using Email. Creating unguessable, hack-proof passwords is something all your staff should be encouraged to do. Don’t respond to requests for personal or sensitive information via email, even if the request appears to be from a trusted source. Web links in email are also a risk, as they often connect to a web domain different from what they appear to represent. But if there’s ... 2. Never click on links in emails. Keep these tips in mind when crafting your messages: TIP: After each email campaign, if you can, track open rates, click-thru rates, and if employees took the action steps requested. At no point must an employee open his or her personal email on the company’s network, except when the need is imminent. Nobody wants to read a “brick wall” of copy. Thanks to the fact that email has been around for more than two decades, researchers have had plenty of time to study how people use and respond to email and have identified certain factors that influence its success (success meaning that people open the emails and do with it what the sender intended). Email content filters will do very little to stop inappropriate emails from one employee to another, or even from employees to the outside world. Foolproof Marketing Tips For Wellness Program Success, Why the ‘funny factor’ can make your wellness communications more effective, Why employee communication needs to be your top priority in the coming year, You Don’t Know Unless You Ask… Sage Advice for Employee Wellness Program, An Editorial Calendar Keeps Your Health, Wellness and Financial Messages Top of Mind, The One Area of Wellness to Concentrate On, Ideas to Make Employee Health Commmunication Exciting with Social Media, Use Seasons of the Year and Seasons of Life to Develop Content for Your Health Communications. The most effective antidote for phishing comes from best practices focused on what is both your greatest asset and threat -- your own people. Email security best practices for employees focus on strong authentication and security education to reduce account takeovers and successful phishing attacks. Here are our top 10 e-mail best practices we think every company should adopt. Digital tools will play a ... What will keep CIOs busy this decade? 1) Use clear, specific subject lines. Be sure to include your program logo at the top or bottom of all your emails, and on all communications you send to employees. Use templates to present a unified face to employees across different types of emails and communications. Add multifactor authentication if possible. Taking a serious approach to email passwords may not entirely overcome poor practices on the part of the organization, but it will help defend against attackers using dictionary attacks to target weak passwords. Email security best practices available to employees can be summarized simply: Employees' exposure to email security best practices is limited: It is up to the organization to implement protection against email security threats at the infrastructure level. The purpose of this paper is to provide some best practices for clients grappling with email retention. Learn how to create an effective cloud center of excellence for your company with these steps and best practices. Alternatively, you can carry out a termination of employment survey. Few employees are able to drive corporate IT decisions like upgrading obsolete or deprecated versions of corporate email clients and servers. Secure Access Service Edge can enhance network performance and security controls for remote sites. SHARE. One tactic employees can use is to review the link contents by hovering the mouse pointer over the link to see if the actual link is different from the displayed link. Learn how to overcome such challenges and ... SASE and zero trust are hot infosec topics. Email Retention Policy Best Practice #1: Start With Regulatory Minimums. It uses two separate “keys” to encrypt all email data – a public key and a private key, which only the recipient has access to. I can help! 3. Corporate e-mail traffic is increasing by nearly 50% a year according to some estimates. You might have the most beautiful, well-written employee newsletter on the face of the earth. The onus for providing secure email falls on the employer, but attackers can find ways to bypass protections even at organizations that implement best practices for email security. Cookie Preferences Copyright 2000 - 2021, TechTarget Employees who use 2FA for their private accounts will be better prepared to use 2FA in their work accounts. Include a clear subject line. Building a cloud IAM team with the necessary technical expertise and soft skills is key to securely managing IAM in complex cloud... Enterprise security best practices must account for changes in cloud landscapes. Scammers can fake caller ID information. Whatever the source, employees should take care with attachments even when the organization uses email scanning and malware blocking software. Check what AWS, Microsoft and Google call their myriad cloud services. Among other email security best practices to introduce is the random checking of senders’ email addresses – especially when an email address belonging to a regular contact is unfamiliar. Take caution when opening email attachments and links. Gather Insight. But that introductory paragraph is an emotional nuclear bomb to boost sales like a pro. Know that strong policies, having a point person observing timesheets, and following our other best practices on this list will help keep your trust in your employees alive. Here are 6 employee-offboarding best practices that can make all the difference for your business: 1. Custom Design Employee Communications & Publications, Employees can de-stress and self-express through coloring, How to Create an Employee Newsletter that Gets Read, Perfecting the Art of Email for Workplace Communication, The Art & Science of Using Email to Power Your Wellness Program. 20 Best Practices for Email Etiquette in the Workplace. Use powerful subject lines to streamline the time it takes for your team to process and find e … Using a personal email address for business purposes can be seen as unprofessional by some, especially if you're discussing confidential matters. 1. 7 Best Practices for Engaging Internal Emails. Decisions on enterprise solutions for email content filtering and strong authentication are almost always made in the C-suite, although employees can advocate for enterprise email security tools like Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) for email authentication. Reusing passwords across different systems means that accounts on any of those systems can be exploited if an attacker gains access to passwords on any of those systems. If best practices for managing remote employees break down at your organization, instead of taking years to drift apart, it may only take a few days for remote employees to feel neglected and disengaged. By checking the sender email address against previous emails received from the same person, it is possible to detect inconsistencies. Recipients expect email messages to be quick-to-read and scan, and visual. For the 95% who are going to follow the rules, this trust is key to their happiness at your business and for you to have low employee turnover. Here are 8 tips to craft a winning subject line: TIP: It’s also wise to test your subject lines, if you are able to track open rates. Be cautious with the cc. Management. The use of two-factor authentication in an enterprise is not usually up to employees: Either the organization has implemented 2FA and requires employees to use it, or it hasn't and they don't. Proper email etiquette calls for sending emails from your business email address, rather than a personal email address. 1. 4. Phishing attacks are the straightforward concept for hackers to steal email profile data. This is a great way to hone your skills in creating communications that resonate with employees. Don't know your Neptune from your Front Door? Receive timely articles & special offers delivered to your inbox. Train your employees on email security. 5. A single employee could make a mistake by sharing sensitive company information on their smartphone or clicking on a corrupt link. Use good passwords for strong authentication. For example, use a standard ... 2. Wouldn’t it be great if you could guarantee your emails get opened, read, and acted upon by your audience? Download FREE Worksite Wellness White Papers and eBooks. Keep subject lines direct and to the point, and update the subject line of long, derailed threads. One seamless way you can train your employees: have them read this article as homework. But in all seriousness, here are some email security practices you or human resources can train your employees to follow: Establish an email policy so employees know what to do and what not to do Creating strong passwords is rule number one in email security, yet surprisingly, many employees still use weak or repeat passwords. Don’t give up, keep tweaking until you find the tone, content and format that resonates the best with your audience. Cybercriminals can create email addresses and websites that look legitimate. This means that in the unlikely event that an email is intercepted, it won't be readable to the intercepting party without the private key. In a business setting, save email for things that are non-urgent, but mostly serious. Remember that many people will assess the relevance of an email by the subject line alone. There is no getting away from the fact that weak passwords are never going to protect your company from data theft or hacking. Employees who wish to level up their email security game on their own have some options, though the greatest responsibility -- and capability -- for improving email security rests with the employer. 1. I’m not exactly known for being Mr. Importance. Email security best practices Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to protecting your company from email attacks and data breaches, which is why you need a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity. Increasing numbers of enterprises are addressing email security through phishing awareness training, and employees should consider such training an important best practice. Employees can use this type of email security training to help identify problematic messages, and learn how to avoid clicking on the wrong links or opening the wrong attachments. Best Practices For Phishing Your Employees. Before using email, consider whether it’s the best method for the particular communication. Users should be known from the domain’s nature, which they haven’t encountered before the current time. Sign-up now. In one survey, one in three email recipients said they decided whether to open an email based on subject line alone. Privacy Policy This data will be extremely valuable to you and will help you improve your messages. It means that the employer's systems, no matter how well-protected, can be exposed by an exploit of a poorly-protected consumer website: Attackers know that trying a re-used password associated with a person's account on a breached system often will work to unlock other accounts. Many email attacks rely on the ability to send and receive attachments that contain malicious executable code. The best way to improve security is to enforce policies and improve awareness of managers for when policies are being broken. The email content brings the bacon home. Connect with me at whaan@hopehealth.com or 800-334-4094. Email Best Practices for New Employees Posted on September 11, 2019 September 24, 2019 by John Koshiol Whether you like it or not, your company’s email is a critical part of your business. Take phishing awareness training seriously. Terminate VPN and Remote Desktop access. 1. Casual conversations are better suited to text, or IM. They can also advocate for deployment of 2FA in organizations that have yet to take it up on their own. Workers come and go for various reasons – retirement, new job opportunities elsewhere, family changes, layoff or termination for cause. For example, send half your list with one subject line and the other half with another version. Today, I’ll be covering five practices often used by effective professionals and managers. In the past, email security best practices for employees could be summarized quickly: Don't trust email, because email is an unauthenticated, unreliable messaging service. Stu Sjouwerman Forbes Councils Member. Design a top-notch newsletter. The benefits of changing passwords quarterly or monthly must be balanced with users' tendency to use weaker passwords that are easier to remember, and thus easier for attackers to exploit. Dig into the benefits -- and drawbacks -- of the top tools and services to help enterprises manage their hybrid and multi-cloud ... A court has ruled that the security and intelligence services can no longer rely on ‘general warrants’ to authorise the hacking ... AstraZeneca’s global infrastructure services director Scott Hunter lifts the lid on the cloud and datacentre setup underpinning ... With remote working now normal, it is important to take proactive steps in managing credentials across platforms that can be ... All Rights Reserved, Locking down all accounts with 2FA is an important tactic to reduce the risk of email account takeovers. 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