Intermedia news
Employees depend on email for work. Are you doing enough to keep it secure?
Our new Data Vulnerability Report surveyed 1,000+ full-time office workers from companies of all sizes to determine how workplace behaviors have impacted data security. One interesting area of insight that didn’t make it into the final report is about employee reliance on work email access.
Losing access to email critically impacts daily workflow
Employees demand constant 24/7 access to emails, as losing access critically impacts daily workflow and productivity. For example, 22% of office workers overall and 25% of millennials, owners and executive management said that they can’t go without access to their work email for more than an hour. Further, nearly half of office workers (49%) said they couldn’t tolerate losing access to work data for more than a few hours, and the significant majority (79%) reported being unable to lose access to work data for more than a few days.
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Email isn’t just how employees communicate with other employees. The versatility of email makes it an essential tool for sending marketing and sales emails, delivering projects, confirming account registrations, disseminating company-wide news, and sending a myriad of files (like photos, documents, Zip drives, etc.). Given this dependency, it’s clear employees expect employers to keep their email running. Considering email’s vital role in the workplace, companies should be aware of how downtime threats, like ransomware, human error, and natural disasters, can negatively impact workflow.
Mitigating risk – what you can do
Email should be a high priority when it comes to security protection. Without optimal cybersecurity strategies in place, companies can face days, or even weeks, of downtime. According to the data, that would make for one seriously unhappy (and unproductive) workforce, not to mention the impact a data breach or downtime could have on your customer relationships. If your customers can’t reach you because you’ve been locked out of your system, they may be inclined to take their business elsewhere.
Mitigate the risk of downtime threats by implementing highly interactive security training that empowers employees with accurate knowledge and the tools necessary to protect themselves and their organization. Companies should ensure they’re protected from all fronts with multi-layered security. So, ask yourself: how secure is your IT environment? Equally important, how fast could you get back up and running should an event occur?
Take a deep dive into our Data Vulnerability Report for pointed tips and resources on how your organization can address cyber threats.
