We all love email. You can send and receive it on your phone, tablet, laptop and desktop computer. We do it because it’s easy. Most of us have a company email and at least one private email. Since anyone can sign up for Gmail, Yahoo mail or Hotmail, everyone has an email account. it’s our default document distribution tool because it’s easy.
Because it’s so easy to do, you may send the wrong document to the wrong person. If you send confidential and sensitive information outside of your company, that could be a HUGE problem. Most email programs have a type-ahead feature that helps you fill in email addresses as you type. This is great since most of us frequently send email to the same people. The downside is that we are too reliant on the technology and may not carefully look before hitting the Send button.
The video below by Verizon shows this in action. One person asks the other if he sent the budget breakdown to him and some colleagues. The sender says yes and checks his sent items to verify. He then notices he sent it to the wrong person. Someone outside the company. Oops! Unfortunately this happens to people all the time.
The best way to make sure that a confidential document doesn’t get into the wrong hands is to encrypt it with a persistent security policy. If the unintended recipient opens the document, she or he couldn’t read anything. The contents of the document looks like random characters.
Watch the video and make sure that you don’t fall into this trap. One click could ruin your day.
