Planning a secure future for your company

As written on blogs.office.com

When it comes to technology in the workplace, most every convenience is balanced against a potential threat. Email and the cloud—for as much as they’ve revolutionized the way we do business—have enabled new methods of theft and fraud and necessitated new regulations. That means planning a secure future for your company is no easy task. Thankfully, you don’t have to set out on the road to protection without a map. Keeping a few key considerations in mind can help guide your way and keep your business safe from harm.

Stay compliant

The amount of data in the world is expected to rise to 44 zettabytes by 2020. How much is a zettabyte? 44 trillion gigabytes.

That’s a lot of data.

And while storing it all presents an enormous challenge, retrieving it can make for an even bigger one. Without the right technology in place, finding a particular bit of information could take a comically long time. Of course, when you’re asked to dig up an email as part of a legal case, no judge will find it funny when you confess that you “can’t find it.” Per current regulations, all businesses are required to keep easily retrievable electronic records of all business data.

To stay compliant and avoid legal trouble, make sure you can properly store, retrieve and monitor your data. Choose a solution with top-level archiving, auditing and eDiscovery capabilities.

Choose privacy

Storing information in the cloud is a convenient way to reduce costs; however, hosting business or consumer data still poses risks. When determining which cloud strategy, you might take, ask yourself these questions:

• Does my cloud provider offer information about its privacy and security practices in one central location?

• If yes, does this information address: 1) where my data is stored; 2) who can access my data; 3) under what circumstances may my data be accessed; and 4) which subcontractors, if any, process my data?

• Does my provider use customer content for purposes beyond optimizing my service platform?

• Does my provider apply robust protections to data transfers in the cloud?

If your answer to many of these questions isn’t a hard “yes,” you may find yourself facing a data breach. And that can be costly. IBM recently found that the average consolidated total cost of a data breach ranges around $4 million.

Keep your business and email secure

Help protect your organization’s data with the email security features you need to move your business ahead. Office 365 has built-in, always up-to-date security and compliance features, for greater peace of mind.

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Don’t skip encryption

No matter your organization’s protection needs, satisfying the three areas of email encryption—security, control and usability—will place you ahead of the competition.

Your email encryption service should enable you to send encrypted messages to anyone, eliminate the need for certificates and enhance the security of email exchanges by encrypting entire threads. Your encrypted email platform should protect sensitive information and data from leaving your gateway, encrypt messages at the gateway based on policy rules and integrate with your existing email infrastructure.

When searching for a secure and confidential business communications platform, opt for a product that leaves email encryption hassles at the door. You’ll minimize capital investment, free up IT resources and mitigate risks.

Prioritize virus protection

Until you’re facing a virus, it may seem like a you’re immune to an inbox invasion. However, in the last year alone, Kapersky detected 4,000,000 unique Malware threats. If you really want to plan a secure future for your company, email monitoring is your first line of defense. Prevent your mailboxes from advanced threats by working with an email provider who provides anti-virus protection, malware analysis on attachments and malicious link scanning.