One of the biggest problems that businesses are facing is the detection and prevention of sensitive and confidential data loss through emails.

According to the 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report, 68% of all data breaches are caused by a non-malicious human element, such as an error in an email.

Data breaches caused by emails can be extremely costly, not only in financial terms but also in terms of reputation and trust.

For example, the UK Ministry of Defense was fined 400,000 euros for a GDPR violation after accidentally emailing details of 265 people, compromising their safety just weeks after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021.

The UK Information Commissioners Office states that the email error could have resulted in a threat to life.

Organizations need an effective email data loss prevention solution to mitigate email threats resulting from human error and to ensure compliance with various email security regulations.

What is Email Data Loss Prevention?

Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a critical component of email security that helps organizations protect sensitive information from being lost, leaked, misused, or accessed by unauthorized individuals. With email being the predominant form of business communication, it’s essential to have robust DLP measures in place to safeguard against various threats.

Email DLP solutions work by monitoring inbound and outbound email communications to detect and prevent potential data breaches. These solutions employ several methods to ensure data security, including:

Monitoring Email Communications: Continuously scanning emails and attachments for sensitive content, such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), intellectual property (IP), and payment card information (PCI).

Detecting Suspicious Activity: Identifying abnormal patterns or behaviors that may indicate a potential data breach, such as emails sent to unauthorized recipients, unusually large attachments, or frequent communication with unknown domains.

Flagging and Blocking Threats: Automatically flagging, blocking, or quarantining emails that pose a risk of data loss, based on predefined security policies. This includes emails containing sensitive data sent to external recipients, emails with suspicious attachments, or those exhibiting phishing characteristics.

Common Causes of Email Data Loss

Email data loss can occur due to various specific and identifiable reasons. Among these, misdirected emails, insider threats, and inadequate security measures stand out as the most significant contributors.

Misdirected Emails

Misdirected emails are one of the most common causes of email data loss. This happens when sensitive information is accidentally sent to the wrong recipient. This can occur due to:

Autofill Errors: Modern email clients often auto-complete email addresses, leading to emails being sent to unintended recipients.
Typographical Errors: Simple typos in email addresses can result in emails being sent to the wrong person.
Recipient Confusion: Employees may confuse recipients with similar names or email addresses, especially in large organizations.

Insider Threats

Insider threats refer to data loss incidents caused by individuals within the organization. These threats can be categorized into two main types:

Malicious Insiders: Employees or contractors who intentionally misuse their access to sensitive data for personal gain or to harm the organization. This includes stealing data to sell it to competitors or leaking it to the public.
Negligent Insiders: Employees who unintentionally cause data loss through carelessness or lack of awareness. This can include actions such as sharing confidential information over unsecured channels or failing to follow data protection protocols.

Inadequate Security Measures

Inadequate security measures can leave an organization vulnerable to email data loss. This includes:

Lack of Encryption: Sending sensitive information over unencrypted email channels can expose data to interception and unauthorized access.
Weak Access Controls: Insufficient access controls can allow unauthorized individuals to access sensitive email content. This includes weak passwords, lack of multi-factor authentication, and poor user management practices.
Insufficient Monitoring and Auditing: Without proper monitoring and auditing, suspicious email activities may go undetected. This includes not tracking email traffic for unusual patterns or failing to log email access and transmission.

Organizations that do not implement robust security measures are at a higher risk of experiencing data breaches.

What data is at risk?

Email is one of the riskiest channel for data loss in your organization. Data loss though emails can put various types of data at risk of being lost or exposed to unintended recipients.

The specific types of data that are at risk may vary depending on the content of the email and the context in which it was sent. Here are some examples of data that may be at risk:

Personal information: Personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account number, and email addresses. This information can be used by cybercriminals to conduct phishing attacks or identity theft.

Confidential corporate information: Sensitive business information such as financial information, trade secrets, and intellectual property is at risk from being lost through misaddressed emails. Competitors can use this information to gain competitive advantage or this information can be sold on the black market.

Protected health information: Misdirected emails that contain protected health information (PHI) can put an individual’s health information at risk. This information is protected by regulations such as HIPAA, and unauthorized disclosure can result in legal and financial consequences.

Legal documents: Emails that contain legal documents, contracts, or other legally binding agreements can put individuals or organizations at risk of legal liabilities if the information falls into the wrong hands.

Passwords and login credentials: Misdirected emails that contain passwords, login credentials, or other authentication information can put individuals and organizations at risk of hacking, unauthorized access, or data breaches.

How to prevent Email Data Loss?

There are many ways you can use to prevent email data loss through misdirected emails.

Double-check your emails: Before sending an email, double-check the email addresses of the recipients to ensure that you are sending the email to the intended recipient(s).

One of the key causes of misdirected emails is the auto-complete feature. Avoid relying on auto-complete or auto-fill functions, especially when sending emails to new or unfamiliar recipients. One way to reduce auto-complete errors is to delete inappropriate suggestions so that they no longer appear. This tactic is useful if someone’s email address is suggested to you whom you may have contacted only once.

Use delay sending feature: Using the delay sending feature allows you to set a delay period between the time you hit “Send” and the time the email is actually sent. The email is stored in your Outbox, and this gives you a window of time to catch and correct any mistakes you may have made before the email is actually sent.

Educate employees: Educate employees on the importance of double-checking email addresses and using the delay-sending feature. However, busy employees seldom double-check emails before sending them.

Industry research shows that majority of the IT leaders are concerned that the majority of the employees do not understand the confidentiality of the information they share through emails.

Use email data loss prevention tools: Use data loss prevention tools that can scan outgoing emails for sensitive or confidential information, such as personal data, intellectual property, or financial information, and alert you if you are about to send an email to the wrong person or group.

Does your company need an Email DLP solution?

It’s important to safeguard your organization’s most sensitive and proprietary information from being lost through email data loss incidents.

Emails mistakes are a real threat to your business.

It’s not sufficient to educate your employees on email security best practices when human error is the main cause of the data breach.

Email data loss prevention (DLP) solutions are becoming increasingly important as businesses and individuals rely more and more on email as a primary mode of communication. They add the extra layer of required protection.

SendGuard for Outlook is an email protection solution that offers email data loss prevention facility that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook to detect sensitive data and confidential information in emails.

SendGuard let’s you double check your emails before you send them out and it can even delay your messages as well. The delay guard feature of SendGuard lets you delay your messages for a preset amount of time. There’s no time limitation unlike Outlook’s built-in feature of delaying emails which only allows you to delay messages up to 2 hours.

SendGuard helps you to:

Protect confidential information

Email is often used to share sensitive and confidential information, such as financial data, personal information, and intellectual property. Email DLP solutions like SendGuard can help prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands by detecting and preventing unauthorized access, sharing, and forwarding of sensitive information.

Meet Compliance

Many industries, such as healthcare, education, legal and finance, are subject to strict regulations around the protection of sensitive information. SendGuard ensures that your business is meeting these requirements by detecting and preventing the transmission of regulated data.

Maintain your Corporate Reputation

A data breach or loss of sensitive information can have serious consequences for your business’s reputation. You can protect your organization’s brand and reputation by preventing data leaks and ensuring that sensitive information is kept secure by using SendGuard.

Avoid Legal and financial risks

Data breaches can result in significant legal and financial consequences for businesses. SendGuard helps mitigate these risks by preventing data loss and ensuring compliance with regulations.

You can create custom rules using SendGuard DLP to identify data that is unique to your business.

SendGuard scans your email body text, subject, attachments, HTML files and compares this against policies that identify text patterns and strings to detect potential data leaks.

When any rule is triggered, administrators may choose to either block, get the sender to send the email or get the sender to review the email.

Case Study: How a Client Prevented Misdirected Emails Caused by Outlook’s Auto-Complete Feature

One of our customers, VMX Technologies, is an MSP providing software, hardware, networking, and cybersecurity solutions.

They were working with a non-profit organization that needed an email protection solution to prevent accidental data loss through misdirected emails and misattached files.

The NGO has employees who work with community members on health-related needs, exchanging protected health information (PHI) via email, covered under HIPAA regulations.

The problem was, users often relied on auto-complete when typing email addresses in the “To” field, leading to sensitive information being sent to the wrong person.

To solve this, the team at VMX Technologies implemented SendGuard for their client, adding an extra layer of protection when sending emails.

This helped the NGO stop data loss and avoid the reputational damage caused by misdirected emails and files.

Learn more: Customer Success Stories

Download a 30-day free trial (no credit card needed)

You can download a fully functional 30-day trial to see how SendGuard can enhance your email information security.

To learn more about SendGuard’s email data loss prevention technology, contact our sales team on sales@standss.com.

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Email Data Loss Prevention: Protecting Your Business from Costly Mistakes