10th December 2014

Is your email as secure as you think?

Technology has changed our workplace experience so much that we tend to forget what we ever did before the widespread introduction of email and the internet. I would be intrigued to see any pictures long-standing advisers have of their office workspaces over the years – go back 10/20/30 years and I can only imagine what has inhabited the top of our desks during that period.

The point is that we now tend to take for granted the technological advancements that make our working life incredibly different to that which has gone before. You’ll notice that I didn’t use the words ‘incredibly easier’ because I’m probably not the only one that, while embracing all manner of new technology, gets frustrated with some of the hoops we are now made to jump through, all in the name of progress.

It was with these very thoughts that I was interested to read Tom Kean’s recent article, ‘‘Secure’ emails are anything but secure’, in the pages of this very magazine. The use of email is such a vital part of the working day that it seems odd to think of a time when correspondence was done purely on the phone or via post. Many people spend their entire working day responding to emails while our mobile devices mean we need never be more than one second away from opening one.

Given the importance of email within the advisory working life, and the sensitivity and importance of the documentation that is now communicated via this method, it is perhaps not surprising that email security is deemed so important. Tom in his article expresses frustration with the number of provider-driven secure email systems that are currently in practice and I suspect this is because, like many, Tom does not see these as particularly secure and just views them as another administrative burden to go through in order to open an attachment.

I tend to see it as rather more important than that and can quite understand why providers are so keen to deliver email security. The consequences of having email intercepted by hackers – and there are plenty of these criminals out there – can be huge. While the data within might not be particularly useful, an individual’s details are. Anyone who has had their identity stolen and used to commit fraudulent acts will know just what I’m talking about.

So, if we can’t be confident of the security of our emails, then a simple return to sending information through the post should suffice, shouldn’t it? Despite it being an impossible ask in this day and age, have a look at the following statistics:

• 250,000 letters are lost each week.
• 72 million letters a year cannot be delivered and have no return address.
• 15 million letters a week are incorrectly addressed.
• 8 million letters a day are sent with no postcode.

Even if you go down the route of recorded delivery, there’s no guarantee your post is going to end up with the right person. Plus, add in the fact that intercepting post by criminal gangs is happening on an industrial scale, and you might be retreating back to your email and wondering how to make it more secure.

So, what are you having to confront? Well, not just the interception of your emails but also more proactive ‘phishing’ for data with emails specifically targeting your information. The vast majority of these will be captured by most people’s SPAM filters but some emails will not and there are clear dangers in this.

Which brings us back to the issue of provider-driven ‘secure email’ systems that might not be up to the job. It’s for this very reason that we have been working with a business called Beyond Encryption that can help advisers create, send and read secure emails with all the security controlled by the individual adviser, not the provider. It doesn’t require accessing any outside systems or online email exchanges hosted by others; instead it can be used with your normal email address and operating system. Keep an eye out on our site to find out more about how you can use this service.

The fact is that 145 billion emails are sent every day – I suspect that on some days it feels like you are sending and receiving the bulk of those – and therefore the opportunity for unsecure emails to slip through the net is clearly there. I fully understand why providers are looking to bulk up their security around their email exchanges with advisers but at the same time it would seem the current systems for doing this are not highly thought of. Necessary, but not user-friendly – it is therefore perhaps time that advisers took control of their own email security which should provide far greater peace of mind, and less frustration, for all.

Don’t forget to take our poll, to the left and let us know what platform you use email on!

Business Development