Billions of people use email to communicate. However, when it comes to sending confidential documents, email is not always the most secure method. Cyber-attacks and data breaches are increasing. It is important to understand how to send sensitive data securely via email.
In the majority of cases it’s not a great idea to send confidential information in an unencrypted email message or as an attachment. This includes personal information such as social security numbers or passport information, bank account information, and confidential documents. However, if you must send confidential information via email, there are some precautions that you can do to safeguard yourself and your recipients.
Adding a disclaimer is one way to warn recipients of the potential dangers that could be involved. However, they rarely have any significant impact as they aren’t legally binding and only emphasize that the contents of the email are confidential.
You can also make use of an email encryption service. This is more efficient and requires you and your recipient to have systems that can support this (e.g. S/MIME or the PGP protocol are two choices. You can also use software to compress files before sending emails. This can reduce the size of the document and make it harder for attackers to intercept your communications. You can also secure the document with a password making it impossible to open without the password.
By adding a limit on time to the document, you can ensure only the intended recipient has access to the document for a specified period of time. Enabling two-factor authentication in your email system will increase security for business emails.
