Why awareness is important for secure communication

Mistakes can happen any time: carelessness, fatigue, not watching your step when rushing to get home... We've all definitely bumped a hip into a pointy table corner. Some mistakes however, have bigger consequences than others, like sharing your data with the wrong people.

In the past four years, over 390.000 data leaks have been reported across Europe since the GDRP came into being in 2018. In the Netherlands, 66% of these breaches were due to human error. These have collectively led to over 1 billion euros in fines... Not a number to sniff at! And certainly not a number that bears repeating.

So how do you go about preventing such a massive number? Awareness is key! 

Data breaches due to human errors

We're a social species, us humans. Whether that's at the office, at home, amongst friends or out in public: our matter of communication is wide and varied and way easier that it was thirty years ago. Applications like WhatsApp or social media have made it easy to reach any one at any time and email has made business communication a tick quicker! It sounds ideal, but the security of these electronical applications is a lot riskier than sending it through the post. 

The ease with which we share data simply poses security risks. Sending out a happy birthday through email uses the exact same method as sending your coworker a new contract, their difference lies in the privacy-sensitive information. So who's to say you're not accidentally sending out a contract to the birthday boy? 

We might be aware of the risks of email, but data leaks happen most often due to careless human mistakes and not because of some crafty hacker breaking into the system. That's when the GDPR comes knocking on your door because you accidentally caused a data leak. Sharing data with the wrong person can happen easily, simply and unfortunately way too often due to inattention and lack of awareness. 

It's time for action!

Increase awareness, reduce the risk of mistakes

The human in human error is what's causing these mistakes to happen. After all, you're only human! We all have days where we're not on top of our game, or where we're longing for the weekend. Inattentiveness sneaks in and boom: you've accidentally shared patient info with the wrong Tom.

As an organization, it's important that you reduce the chance of these errors, so we can all work towards a safer work environment.

Can you work safely without interrupting the work flow? Of course you can! Businesses typically worry about the time and effort it takes to implement a new feature, but solutions have come a long way since then. The most important feature to look out for is increasing the awareness of your users, that cuts your work in half. 

Help the weakest link in your data security: your employees.

Look at the safe email solution as offering you two primary benefits: 

• Safety standards ensure the highest quality of your organization and work to protect you from harm. Not doing it means you could be susceptible to loss of clients, financial loss and reputation damage. 
  
  
• By increasing the awareness of email safety standards, the risk of errors is reduced. Using safe email means that employees must make sure that sensitive information is being shared with the right person. This can be as simple as simply hitting an extra confirm before sending, making sure that they double-check the name in the list. Other smart technology includes a pop-up notification when the system recognises sensitive information (like social security numbers), locking the message before it can be sent out. These will help prevent the message being shared with unauthorized people.  
  
  

Technical measures help your organization be better and save your IT department time.  

We believe in "Prevention is better than cure"!