Coleman Technologies Blog

Consolidate Your Email with the Clean Up Tool

Businesses will often use email to communicate between groups of people, which is a really useful practice for keeping people apprised and in-the-know of what’s going on. However, these messages can quickly become repetitive, incoherent messes--especially in chains made up of larger groups--as participants reply to them, duplicating the thread within itself. Outlook includes a utility known as the Clean Up tool to fix these problems in your email conversations, and even in entire email folders.

By finding the Clean Up icon in the ribbon at the top of your Outlook window, you can access a drop-down menu. This menu offers to Clean Up Conversation, Clean Up Folder, or Clean Up Folder & Subfolders. Once you’ve confirmed your choice, you can access Clean Up settings, which allow you more granular control over how the tool sorts through your existing conversations.

Schedule Out a Message with Future Delivery

Sometimes you’ll have an opportune moment to send an email, but it isn’t the right time for this email to be received. For instance, if you want to share something with your employees to keep in mind throughout the next day, it doesn’t make sense to distribute it at the end of the day before for it to be forgotten. Outlook allows you to use your opportunity to your full advantage with Future Delivery.

Once you’ve written an email, click on Options, and then Delay Delivery. This opens a Properties box for that specific message, including Delivery Options that include a checkbox labeled “Do not deliver before.” Selecting this option and specifying a time and date will prevent your recipient from receiving your message before that point. Once you’re satisfied, close the Properties box and send the message just like any other.

Taking Advantage of Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are used to simplify access to commonly-used functions in many computer programs and applications, and Outlook is no exception. For instance, Outlook features shortcuts for a wide range of its functionality - covering the basics (like composing a new message by pressing Ctrl+Shift+M), organizational tools (like moving a message with Ctrl+Shift+V) or annotating your messages (like adding flags to important ones with Ctrl+Shift+G).

This is really just the start of Outlook’s capabilities to help your operations. Subscribe to our blog to find out whenever we post other tips or IT blogs.

VoIP and Conferencing

Every business needs to have a telephone system, that much is understood. Traditional telephone companies haven’t invested in their infrastructure and it shows. While some telephone companies have started updating their systems, the functionality that the modern business needs necessitates interactive capabilities. This is where a VoIP solution comes in. For a fraction of the cost of a traditional telephone system, companies can use their existing Internet connection to run an enterprise-level telephone system that has all the features they need. 

A base Voice over Internet Protocol solution comes with some of the features you most expect out of a business phone system such as call forwarding, voicemail, call routing, and more; but, when you expand a VoIP solution, you can get very powerful tools such as conferencing, instant messaging, and even video chat solutions. Hosted in the cloud or on dedicated local hardware, VoIP is one of the strongest and most cost-effective communications tools you can get for the modern business. 

Email

Most businesses use an email system for business correspondence. Some even use commercially available solutions. This isn’t ideal as there is plenty of information exchanged in the course of business that would be sensitive in nature. That’s why we believe that it is important for a business to use business-grade email. There are quite a few different options to choose from as businesses can opt to host their own email, or select a cloud-hosted solution. 

If security is a concern--and it almost always should be--a locally-hosted server could be the way to go. Today’s cloud-based email platforms, especially those that come with high-end productivity suites, are created with advanced tools like built-in encryption and artificial intelligence. These tools go a long way toward making the cloud-hosted email a viable selection for the modern business. 

Messaging and Collaboration

No matter what communication solutions a business chooses, it has to be able to fuel increases in productivity. Today, there are cloud-based productivity suites on the market that provide people the ability to work together in real time. This collaborative growth is a main component of the development of new and exciting productivity software.

In fact, the need for organizations to maximize their resources on projects has pushed software developers to begin to create better collaborative software. New software with hundreds of third-party software integrations, real time instant messaging, and other great features are revolutionizing project management. 

With more people working together from different locations, and more businesses outsourcing key parts of their operations, communications are going to continue to be one of the most important aspects of the business landscape going forward. If you would like to talk to an IT professional about which new communications tool would be a good fit for your business--and, how these tools will save your company money--call the IT experts at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

Here, we’ll review the basic experiences that this scam subjects a user to as it sets the trap… and, of course, what your business can do to avoid these threats.

How Users Can Be Scammed

Put yourself in the shoes of a targeted user for a moment: just like any other day, you access your Gmail account and discover what looks like a Google Calendar invite. The invite is apparently for some kind of company-wide meeting (probably to discuss the company’s trajectory, policy changes, or something like that) to take place at the end of the workday. The message includes a link to the complete agenda, which can be accessed once a user confirms their credentials. You do so… and in doing so, fall for a scam.

This scam can be pretty safely categorized as “brilliant in its simplicity,” much like other phishing attacks can be nowadays. By using Google’s own convenience-based features, a fraudulent calendar event can be automatically added to a user’s Google Calendar, notifying the user. Fraudulent links send the user to a faked Google login page, where the user’s credentials are stolen as they attempt to log in. Alternatively, the link just begins installing malware directly to the targeted system. This scam has also proved effective against private users - informing them of some fabulous cash prize they’ve “won” through these fake Calendar entries.

How the Scam Was Uncovered

As it turns out, the details of this scam were reported to Google by an IT security firm in 2017, but Google has not made any steps to resolve it until recently.

The firm stumbled upon this discovery when a coworker’s flight itinerary appeared in an employee’s Google Calendar. From there, the researcher realized the implications of this accidental discovery, and quickly determined that users just don’t anticipate phishing attacks to come in through their Calendar application.

Can This Scam Be Stopped?

Now that Google has acknowledged the issue, a fix is currently being developed as of this writing. Until the point that a successful fix is deployed, you need to make sure your users are protected against this vulnerability.

The first thing they need to do is ensure that no Gmail events are automatically added to their Google Calendar. Under Settings in the Google Calendar application, they need to access their Event settings. From there, they need to deselect the option to Automatically add events to my calendar from their Events from Gmail.

To disable invitations to events from automatically adding themselves to the Google Calendar, a user needs to go through the same process, this time switching the Automatically add invitations option to the much safer “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.”

With any luck, this - combined with a little vigilance from your users - will protect your business from a phishing attack via its schedule. To learn more about how to protect your business against a variety of threats, subscribe to our blog, and give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing can help business owners accomplish a plethora of tasks in the workplace. For one, video conferencing gives you the power to directly communicate with other parties, like vendors, customers, regulators, etc., without being in the same physical location. You also have the option to share screens, documents, presentations, and more through a video conferencing setup.

Chat Platforms

A chat platform will give users the ability to communicate both in and out of the office, whether it’s providing assistance to your clients or acting as a communication infrastructure for your employees. Some organizations have even taken to automating chat platforms to provide a more effective service to their clients. In fact, these services are often more cost-effective, and they come with a high level of customizability to provide an alternative to having a traditional support line.

Voice over Internet Protocol

Voice over IP has been around for quite some time, and it’s so popular that even cable companies are providing it these days. The biggest component of a successful VoIP platform is ensuring that you’re not overpaying for bandwidth. Your business’ phone system will run over your organization’s Internet connection, so it’s crucial that you’re not buying more than needed. A VoIP solution, when implemented correctly, can save you time and resources better spent elsewhere. VoIP systems can integrate well with other services, as well.

Mobile Devices and BYOD

Everyone has a mobile device of some sort, so businesses are beginning to leverage this to their advantage through the use of Bring Your Own Device. Organizations that have employees who often travel for work will find it beneficial for them to bring their own devices into the workplace so as to offset the cost of purchasing work devices for them… as long as there are limits in place, of course.

Of course, securing these devices is also of the utmost importance, which is why solutions such as mobile device management exist. These solutions give administrators the chance to limit a device’s data access based on user privileges, limit the kinds of software installed on them, and more. Mobile device management might be hard to implement for certain businesses with outspoken employees, so address these issues accordingly.

Intranet

Intranet solutions consist of a data system that can be used for file sharing. A company intranet can be used in various ways; they can be hosted on-site, in a private cloud solution, or implemented in a hybrid solution. An intranet hosted on your local area network can give any computer that’s connected to the network the ability to access the intranet. Given the right permissions, an intranet can enable collaboration utilizing this single point of storage.

A cloud-based solution can be hosted on private hardware, but it will depend on the integration and whether or not you’ve set up access control and authorization. Cloud systems are generally hosted outside the confines of your physical network, yet they offer a considerable amount of flexibility with access to data and applications.

Cloud Services

There are countless cloud services out there that your organization can use to establish lines of communication, including email, instant messaging, collaboration software, and more.

Unified Communications

If you can unify your business’ communications, you will see quite a lot of benefits. Centralized software gives you the opportunity to host all of your applications in one location, like VoIP, Instant Messaging, Video Conferencing, etc., and it all reports back to one location where it can be tracked. Unified communications are a great way to monitor transparency and increase the value of your solution.

Coleman Technologies’s IT experts can present you with the best communications solutions for your organization. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Properly Managing Your Email Like a Professional

Let’s not split hairs here: checking your email throughout the day can be a major waste of time. In order to avoid sinking time you could otherwise spend productively on reading (and re-reading) emails, there are a few habits you could develop.

Impose Rules on Your Email Habits

As we’ve said, repeatedly checking your email throughout the day can very quickly become a waste of your time. To avoid this, schedule times throughout your day to commit to checking your email. Once your time is up, stop until your next scheduled time.

We’ve all also accumulated emails that we simply don’t need to read. As harsh as it may seem, archive these emails, or unsubscribe as they come in to keep your inbox clean based on the subject line or the sender.

Managing Important Emails

Admittedly, not every email that comes in will be a waste of time. However, an overstuffed inbox can make it easy to miss something important. To avoid this issue, utilize folders to file your emails so that your inbox doesn’t become overfilled.

If Time is Left, Return to Your Inbox

If you finish your other tasks, return to your inbox and review your messages in order of importance. If you happen to run out of time, stop your review until your next opportunity. As you review your emails, don’t be afraid to unsubscribe to emails that aren’t important to your tasks.

Don’t Be Afraid to Leverage Filters and Labels

Filters and labels can help you to keep your emails more automatically organized. Your filters/labels should be relevant to their content. One can contain messages from a certain sender or pertain to a certain topic. As a result, you will be able to more easily keep your emails organized.

Rules like these can also keep you from having to deal with automatic replies, like out-of-office autoresponders and similar replies that you don’t need to receive.

What other emails have gotten in the way of your productivity? Let us know… we might cover them in a future blog! For more information, subscribe to our blog!

What Makes Spear Phishing Different?

As a rule, spear phishing is a much more precise and personalized process. To keep to the “fishing” analogy, a generalized phishing campaign casts a wide net, trying to snare as many victims as possible with their scam. Utilizing vague and generic language, the ‘typical’ phishing attack is made to appear to come from a large organization, informing the user of some need for the user to take action, resulting in the hacker gaining access to the user’s information. This methodology makes the typical phishing attack fairly effective against many people, while simultaneously easier to spot if one knows the warning signs.

By comparison, spear phishing is far more precise. Instead of trying to find value in the quantity of targets snared in a trap, spear phishing takes the opposite tack. Using a highly targeted approach, spear phishing attacks are directed toward a specific individual within an organization.

This specified approach means that the generic messages that many phishing attempts leverage simply won’t be enough to fool the intended target. Instead, the hacker has to play investigator, seeking out as much information as they can about their intended target. Where do they work? What is their position in the company? Who do they frequently communicate with? Once the hacker has collected enough information to create a convincing message, they will typically spoof an email to their target. This email will usually contain some reference to a known contact or some in-progress project to make it more convincing and will request that the recipient download a file via a provided link.

However, while the link will direct to what appears to be a Google Drive or Dropbox login page, it is just another layer to the deception. Entering credentials into this page will give them right to the hacker for their use, breaching the user’s security and putting the entire business at risk in one fell swoop.

What Methods Do Spear Phishers Use?

Due to how spear phishing works, the messages sent by hackers need to be as convincing as possible. Combining extensive research with some practical psychology, a hacker has more ammunition to power their attacks.

As mentioned above, spear phishing is far less generic than the average phishing attempt. By referencing specific people, things, and events that mean something to the target, or appearing to come from an internal authority (a manager, perhaps, or even the CEO), the hacker can create a message that is less likely to be questioned. If the hacker writes their messages without any spelling or grammatical errors, as many spear phishers do, it only becomes more convincing.

These hackers are so reliant upon their target being fooled; many will purchase domains that strongly resemble an official one. For instance, let’s say you owned the domain website-dot-com. If a hacker decided to pose as you to launch a spear phishing attack, they might purchase the domain vvebsite-dot-com. Without close inspection, the switch may not be noticed - especially if the hacker creates a good enough lookalike website.

Am I A Target?

Of course, the research that a hacker has to do to successfully pull off a spear phishing attack is extensive - not only do they have to identify their target, they also have to figure out the best way to scam this target. Generally speaking, a hacker seeking to leverage spear phishing will focus their efforts on anyone in an organization who could potentially access the information that the hacker wants but isn’t high up enough in the organization to question an assignment from above.

Or, in more certain terms, a business’ end users.

In order to minimize the chances that a spear phishing attack will be successful against your company, you need to make sure that everyone subscribes to a few best practices. For example:

• Pay attention to the finer details of an email. Is the message actually from christine@contactcompany.com, or does the email address actually read kristine@companycontact.com? Did Christine/Kristine include any attachments? As these can be used to spread malware via email, you should avoid clicking on them unless you are certain the message is legitimate.
  
  
• Is the message written to sound overly urgent? Many phishing messages, especially spear phishing messages, will try to push an action by making it seem as though inaction will lead to a critical issue. Another warning sign to look out for: any deviation from standard operating procedures. Don’t be afraid to question a sudden switch from Google Drive to Dropbox - it may just be the question that stops a spear phishing attack.
  
  
• Speaking of questioning things, don’t hesitate to make sure that any messages you suspect may be spear phishing aren’t actually legitimate through some other means of communication. A quick phone call to the alleged sender will be well worth avoiding a data breach.
  
  

While spear phishing is a considerable threat to your business, it is far from the only thing you need to worry about. Coleman Technologies can help your business secure its IT solutions and optimize them for your use. To learn more, subscribe to our blog, and give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Those familiar with the online version of Gmail will find all of this quite familiar, as Smart Compose has been predicting their next words for some time now. It will seem newer to those more familiar with the Gmail application in macOS and Windows, as it hasn’t been available there until now. 

Using Smart Compose on Android Devices

The first thing you’ll have to have in order to use Smart Compose is an active Google account, with the latest version of the Gmail application installed on your chosen device. As you type, Smart Compose will present its predictive text suggestions that a user can either accept, or just keep typing to ignore. While this form of machine learning is pretty basic, it does demonstrate how a device can “learn” how a user is most likely to use it - in this case, what word is likely to come next in the user’s sentence.

Turning Smart Compose Off (and On Again)

Of course, some users may find these suggestions inconvenient or distracting. That’s totally fair, and means that these users should deactivate the Smart Compose feature. Access the Gmail app’s menu by pressing the hamburger icon at the top left. You should see your Settings from there. You will be asked to choose from the accounts that have access to your device. Once you’ve selected the appropriate account, look under General settings to find Smart Compose. Use the toggle switch to activate it or deactivate it as you please.

While Smart Compose may not be quite as impressive as the artificial intelligence that appears in feature films, it has one major advantage over them: it can actually be used to benefit your business. For other ways that you can give your business operations a boost through technology solutions and tips, subscribe to our blog! You can also reach out to us directly by calling (604) 513-9428.

Stay Organized Whenever Possible

Any business owner receives countless emails on a daily basis, and when they all collect in one place, they can quickly become overwhelming. The issue with this is that, when you have to focus on too many messages at once, it’s more likely that you’ll miss important messages, focus on the wrong tasks, or even respond to messages thinking they are different ones, creating some messy confusion. If you can’t determine what’s important in your inbox, how can you even be productive? We recommend placing filters on your inbox so that you can determine a message’s importance, sender, topic, and even more to navigate and sort your inbox in the most efficient way possible.

Allocate Time to Your Inbox

You should always set aside a specific amount of time every day to deal with the emails you receive. If you don’t, chances are that you will get sidetracked by a task and possibly miss out on responding to important emails. One thing to keep in mind when considering how quickly you should respond to emails is that messages that are the most important aren’t going to come in your email inbox. The ones that are critical will likely come in other forms, such as someone within your organization knocking on the door or giving you a phone call to make the issue known.

Use Alternative Communication Methods

If you find yourself stuck with a perpetually full inbox, perhaps you could benefit from sending or receiving fewer messages. If the message is short or a simple notification, perhaps it would be better to use alternative means of communication, such as an instant message. This is particularly great, as it cuts down on the back and forth required for a quick conversation, as well as takes the urgency out of a situation.

Make a Quick Phone Call

Sometimes a matter is too important to leave to an email. In cases like this, making a phone call is the most prudent. Furthermore, meeting in person can take this advantage one step further, as you eliminate the possibility of intent being misconstrued altogether, making it much easier to be as clear as possible.

To learn more about how you can eliminate the pains of email, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

One Account, Two Accounts, Three Accounts, Four…
Based on your work responsibilities and how your office is structured, it is quite possible that you need regular access to multiple email accounts. You could have one you use internally, one for communicating with clients, one to reach out to vendors, one to use to sign up for resources… you get the point. When all is said and done, that’s a lot of email messages.

However, you presumably have other work responsibilities beyond just checking your email, so switching between all of them just isn’t a practical option. Well, it just so happens that you won’t need to switch, as the email client you choose will be able to consolidate these multiple accounts for you. Before we get into how, we need to make sure that we’re speaking the same language here.

- An email account is the individual address used to send or receive a message. In your organization, you might have employee1@yourbusiness.com and employee2@yourbusiness.com. Likewise, each employee may have a different account for their different responsibilities - for instance, employee1vendor@yourbusiness.com and employee1internal@yourbusiness.com.

- An email client is the program that allows you to send and receive emails. Gmail and Microsoft Outlook are two perfect examples. If you have multiple clients stored on the same server, they can be used pretty much interchangeably, each client presenting all emails. An email client also has a few features that enable you to better keep track of multiple email accounts, provided you have set it up to do so.

Let’s go over your options now.

Multiple Inboxes
The people who developed the email clients that we use weren’t naive. They understood that a given user isn’t going to be tied down to a single email provider, and certainly not a single account. This is why email clients can support multiple inboxes, assuming they are configured correctly. Multiple inboxes allow a user to access a single client to manage multiple email accounts, streamlining the process greatly and enabling customized organization.

Multiple Email Personalities
On the other hand, some users don’t mind leveraging one inbox, but might still need to utilize more than one address in their correspondence. There is also a method that enables the use of a single, catch-all inbox, but enables the user to select which email address (in this case, known as personalities) their response is sent from.

To do so, you will first need to set up an email account that you do not give out, as it will serve as the catch-all address that all of your emails ultimately accumulate within. Once it has been set up, you need to set all of your other accounts to forward their contents to that mailbox - your internal IT resource should be able to help.

Once your messages are all being sent to the catch-all account, you will be able to respond to these emails from the address that they were originally sent to.

Setting Up Inboxes and Personalities
In order to accomplish either of these tasks for your client of choice, you will need to adjust a few settings.

Gmail
To add another account to your Gmail client, you’ll need to access your Settings, which means you have to click on the gear icon. Once you’re in your Settings, you should see a tab labeled Accounts and Import. Under that tab, there is a Check mail from other accounts section. Click on Add a mail account, and follow the instructions provided.

To add additional personalities to your Gmail account, you’ll need to again navigate to the Accounts and Import tab. There, you will find a section labeled Send Mail As, with the option to Add another email address. This will also allow you to choose your default email address.

Outlook
As it happens, there are too many different versions of Microsoft Outlook and too many variables to allow us to provide a walk-through. Fortunately, Microsoft does offer some documentation that instructs users how to manage their "connected accounts.” Of course, you can also call (604) 513-9428 for our assistance, as well.

Are there any solutions that you frequently use that you’d like some extra tips for? Tell us which ones in the comments section, and don’t forget to subscribe!

Microsoft’s Dedication to Security

Microsoft has as good of a handle on the nature of cybersecurity as any other major software company. The sustainability of their business and the effectiveness of their products are dependent on it. If their security software didn’t work well, there is no way they could sustain their place as the world’s most important software company, right?

One problem they are running into is that their security is SO effective, that hackers had to shift the ways they tried to infiltrate networks and steal data. The establishment of phishing is a social engineering term for duping a victim into downloading software that’s only purpose is to gain access to their personal data, which leads to data and identity theft, and in the case of business computing, access to much more.

Businesses Have Trouble with Security

Today’s business has to deal with a lot of different security issues. First, they are responsible for having the technology protections connected to each part of their computing infrastructure. This can be as simple as having the router-supplied firewall and an antimalware program loaded on their server. It’s likely, however, that the average business will need more coverage over their network to secure it, and the data stored behind those security platforms.

Next, and maybe most crucially, it is the business’ responsibility to train its staff on what kind of issues to look out for. Today, most malware infections and other infiltrations are the result of a mistake made by a person that has credentials and access to data. If your organization doesn’t properly train your staff on how to eliminate these threats, there is a fair chance that your network will be inundated with some type of malware at some point.

Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance

Microsoft, acknowledging the need for an enterprise product that combines the power of their Windows 10 operating system, the productivity options presented from Office 365, and powerful security and compliance controls, has launched Microsoft Office 365. The cloud-based solution presents the core computing resources that any business could use in a product that is available right now from Coleman Technologies.

Our knowledgeable technicians can help you find the right security platform for any of your business’ computing needs. Call us today at (604) 513-9428.

Of course, moving to a cloud-based email solution might seem a little intimidating--especially if you’ve never dealt with a cloud-based service before. We’ll help you make the jump with four tips and tricks to consider for this process.

How is Your Email Being Hosted?
First, you’ve have to determine whether the solution will be hosted in your own personal on-site cloud or if a service provider will host it. If you opt out of managing your own cloud-based email solution, you’ll have to determine if a public cloud is the best place for your email, or if you’d rather have it hosted privately by a managed service provider like Coleman Technologies.

Be Sure to Include Archiving and Backup
If you’re not taking advantage of archiving and backups for those archives, you could be putting your business in jeopardy. What if you ever have to refer back to past emails to determine who said what in the event of a disaster? You should be sure that you are routinely archiving your emails, as well as backing up those archives to make sure they are always available when you need them.

Don’t Forget About Security
If you’re storing your organization’s email infrastructure online in the cloud, you’ll have to worry about the security of it. Make sure that it’s protected--a firewall, antivirus, and especially encryption. With the amount of sensitive information found in most inboxes, you need to keep it secure.

Consider the Devices Used
When choosing an email solution, you should think about which devices will be accessing it. Most of the common email applications out there, including Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and so on, will have mobile applications that can be downloaded to devices for on-the-go access. After all, if you’re implementing cloud-based email to improve access, you want to make sure your employees actually have access to it.

To learn more about how your business can take advantage of cloud-hosted email solutions, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Spam Inundation

If you've been using email for a while either professionally or personally you have almost certainly gotten email from people you don't know. Most of these emails are blatantly unwanted while others can look 'almost' legit, as if a real person is trying to contact you. Often (and unfortunately) spammers can get your email address when you put it online or use it to register for accounts on sites on the internet. The good news is standard spam protection is getting better these days, and more advanced spam protection is cost effective for businesses that need the extra layer of protection. Spam can cause a lot of harm for a business network if it isn't kept under control - spam can bog down email servers and eat up network bandwidth and plus it drastically slows down employee productivity because they need to sift through it all just to find their real email. If you and your staff are getting more than a few spam emails a day, contact us at (604) 513-9428 and ask about our anti-spam solutions.

Don't Open Attachments from Unsolicited Emails

This has been a golden rule for general email usage for a very long time. If you received an email from a stranger and there is an attachment, don't touch it. If you receive an email from a contact and there is an attachment, but anything is suspicious, don't touch it. This goes the same for links - if the email was unexpected and just seems fishy, it is possible your contact's email may have been compromised. Use your judgment on this, but remember it isn't your contact trying to trick you, they are merely the victim of a similar hoax from one of their contacts. If you have any doubt, simply reply or pick up the phone and ask them about it before continuing.

Keep your Computer Safe

Be sure to keep antivirus definitions up to date, and run scans regularly. Running adware and spyware removal software at regular intervals is important too. Be sure your Windows Updates are up to date as well. For businesses, you'll want to invest in network protection to keep external threats from leaking in. Even for small British Columbia businesses, security and threat management is important to keep operations running smoothly and to prevent expensive downtime and data theft.

Don't Rely on Email for Storage

Everyone has done this at least once; you are working on a report or document on one computer and you email it to yourself in order to pull it up on another computer. That's fine as long as you mind your inbox capacity, but you shouldn't rely on email for storing files, not even as a reliable backup. Imagine having to painstakingly pick through all of your email to restore your most important files. It doesn't sound like a good idea now, does it? On top of that, email isn't any less prone to data corruption or loss than any typical storage solution, and unless the server hosting your email is backed up with a reliable solution, it could be here today and gone the next.

Encrypt Sensitive Data

If you send sensitive data to other recipients, you will want to consider email encryption. Some industries require this. Email encryption simply scrambles the message while it is being sent, and depending on what type of encryption, will descramble itself or allow your recipient to log in to a secure location to view the data. Although email encryption services vary, most of them are very cost effected especially when put beside the risks of sensitive data getting leaked and stolen. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to learn more about email encryption and what solution is right for your business needs.