Managing complexities of corporate
emails in an insecure world
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Introduction
Email communication is a backbone of all the
communications and business processes in an
organization. Various researches have
indicated that more than 70% of business
information in any organization resides in
email.
At the same time, complexities involved in
corporate email management have increased
multifold. With hacking techniques getting
sophisticated, data in emails is constantly
under a threat of being stolen. Employees can
knowing or unknowingly can leak the sensitive
data to outsiders. On other hand, email size
and volumes are constantly growing and
archiving such large data getting difficult as
every passing day. Increased usage of mobile
devices is posing new challenges on syncing
and securing the data. And all the while one
have to make sure that business is not
impacted when some part of email service is
not functioning.
This paper will highlight the challenges
involved in managing corporate email and
suggest approaches to convert these
challenges into opportunities.
External threats to email security
With the advent in technology, highly skilled
and sophisticated hackers are waiting to sniff
off high value data information. Blended
content which combines both email and web
threats will look like a genuine message from
your vendor or customer and will lead you to
trap where you identity can be stolen
To overcome these challenges, many
organization’s install Anti-spam solutions.
However, these solutions lack protection from
day-zero virus outbreaks as well as cannot
ensure the secure transactions. A cloud based
security solutions can be effective to avoid
day-zero viruses and the encrypted mail
transactions. Having email data in cloud also
translates to data residing at a secure location
than infected laptops or mobile phones.
Data leak prevention
Almost every employee has access to some or
other form of sensitive data that could be of
immensely useful to competitors. Controlling
what information leaves your company
network has become imperative. While
controlling the information, one has to make
sure that a role based policies and control are
implemented. For example, top management
may want to send all the documents while
contractual employees should be able send
mail only within the organization.
An effective data leak prevention system
should have ability to mould itself as per
business requirements. It is always beneficial
to have DLP system at the network or
gateway level as it is easily configurable
Challenges with Mobile devices
Many organizations are now embracing BYOD
policy and allowing employees to access data
on their personal phones. Mobile messaging
devices keep employees in touch with
colleagues and customers, but constant
connectivity also blurs the line between
personal and business use and lead to
potential security threats.
It is important to make sure that only certain
employees should have access to corporate
email on their mobile and email transactions
using mobile devices are always secure and
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encrypted. Remote wipe is very useful in the
event of employee losing the mobile device or
leaving the organization.
The mobility solutions should be evaluated
based on ability to configure the policies
remotely, role based access control, complete
data sync across the devices, data protection
in case of theft etc.
Email archiving and backup
The traditional methods of archiving include
backing up mailbox files from local machine of
each user. However this method of archival is
not scalable and reliable as the company size
increases or the users are spread across
geography. User can delete the mails before
even getting backed up.
With the increase in email volume and email
size, the archiving and restoration is getting
out of control due to sheer size of data, data
indexing and data discovery.
The archiving solutions should provide easy
way to archive the email as soon as it is sent
or received. It should be scalable in case of
any spurt of emails. The solution should be
device agnostic and should provide an easy
mechanism to restore the mails. It is always
advisable to archive or backup the data at the
cloud.
Ensuring business continuity
Email is the most preferred communication
channel to conduct business as it is very fast,
can address group of persons at a time and
keeps record of all the communication. Even a
small email downtime or data loss can have
severe implications on business operations.
To achieve the business continuity at the all
the time, all the components of email
infrastructure needs to be replicated. Also
one has to ensure that the backup
infrastructure is situated at a different
location and uses separate network to
connect to employee devices.
Multiple systems management
When IT team implement an individual
solution for each of the mentioned problem,
the corporate email infrastructure becomes
immensely complex as depicted in diagram.
A typical in-house email infrastructure
Multiple ancillary systems lead to multiple
purchase agreements, multiple licensing
schemes, multiple renewal dates and of
course multiple interfaces, configurations,
policies, reporting tools, patch schedules and
support contacts for your IT team to deal
with. The time it takes to deal with tasks
means that many companies devote the
majority of their IT budget to maintenance
rather than innovation.
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Conclusion
Cloud messaging solution
Current challenges of managing corporate
email can be eliminated if the mailing solution
is moved to cloud. In the cloud doesn’t mean
out of sight. Many advance cloud messaging
solutions available gives IT ream a complete
freedom to control and manage email setup
from administrative panels.
Often lack of security is the reason cited
against a cloud messaging solution. On closer
inspection, one would realise that renowned
cloud messaging service providers are more
equipped to handle day-zero virus outbreak,
disaster recovery, business continuity and
enforcing secure mail transactions. The
processes and policies for change
management and system access control which
are regularly audited by independent
auditors, gives advantage to cloud messaging
solution to eliminate possibility of data
getting into wrong hands.
Cloud messaging solution
While cloud email solution might appear to be
competition for an organization’s IT
department, the truth is cloud email solution
gives a leverage to IT team to focus on
innovative projects which can boost up the
organization’s productivity and profitability.
Hybrid setup
A hybrid email solution combines the best
of both on-premise and cloud email
solution. It gives businesses the
functionality users need without
overpaying for features they don't need.
One can have both systems working
seamlessly on the same domain. Some of
the benefits of hybrid solution are as
follows
Pay for what you use - In an on-premise
email solution, all features and services
are bundled together. Research shows
that most users require only basic email
functionality and advanced features are
used only by top executives. Therefore, if
the entire organization only uses an on-
premise email, IT managers will end up
paying for services and features that 80%
of the organization will not use. To shave
off unnecessary overheads, a hybrid email
solution is the best system.
Phased migration - IT managers
appreciate the value of a cloud email
solution but since they have already
invested in their email infrastructure,
they're hesitant to make a sudden switch.
In such cases, hybrid solution offers a
great value where an IT administrator can
migrate to a cloud mailing solution in
phases. This helps to ensure that the
disruptions are minimal and the transition
is smooth.