Think your organization is immune to accidental emailing? Well, think again- Email remains the most prominent form of business communication till today. Your company can reveal confidential information such as intellectual property, trade secrets, contracts, and personal information about its clients in any of the emails sent by your staff on a day-to-day basis.
Real-Life Examples of Accidental Emailing
Take a look at this case, where a city council accidently emailed a file containing details of hundreds, potentially thousands of vulnerable people (children included) to 27 companies while getting tenders. The council is facing investigation from higher authorities as this is a serious breach of Data Protection Act.
Another case, which also received global attention was a case of a scandal surrounding an accounting giant firm where a group of 17 male employees in Dublin started forwarding around a “top 10” list of their picks for the most attractive female employees in the office. This email was forwarded all over Ireland and made its way into the newspaper.
This case was certainly a PR nightmare for that internationally renowned accounting firm.
Perhaps this case clearly demonstrates how an organization is not immune to human errors. An employee at Western State Hospital (Psychiatric hospital in Lakewood, Washington) unknowingly sent a spreadsheet containing confidential information of 515 patients to the wrong email address.
If you think it’s easy to get away with an email sent to the wrong address- well have a look at this case. An attorney working for a top law firm known by the name of Wilmer Hale unwittingly emailed sensitive commercial information about its client PepsiCo, to a Wall Street Journal reporter. Wilmer Hale sent a notice to Wall Street Journal asking to delete the privileged information but by then it was too late. The report was already published, and the damage was already done.
Such cases cause serious data breaches and firms can face legal action, hefty fines, and reputational loss for failing to ensure data protection and confidentiality.
Sending a recall email saying “Please delete this email. Please then delete this email from your “Deleted items” folder as well. Please do not open this email or read it.”
Such recall emails cannot prevent the damage that is already done. And this is proved in the cases highlighted above.
Is There a Way to prevent Accidental Emailing?
YES.
Luckily, we just have the solution for you that would be a great investment for your privacy toolkit.
SendGuard for Outlook is an add-in that prevents you from sending sensitive and confidential emails to the wrong person.
Solutions like SendGuard helps you to implement data security measures that detect, control, and prevent risky email sending behavior. It’s a great dignity saver.
SendGuard does its job when it comes to stopping inadvertent disclosure of sensitive data to the wrong recipient.
If privacy, confidentiality, and security are of the upmost importance to your organization and if you want to ensure professionalism, accuracy, proper demeanor and a failproof way to force yourself to slow down and double check your email- then SendGuard is the right tool for your business.
To know more about SendGuard and how its features can help you, contact our Sales Team at sales@standss.com to arrange for a demo or an onsite trial or visit our website at www.standss.com/sendguard for more information.
