About half, 45pc of employees have mistakenly shared emails containing key data with unintended recipients, including personal information (15pc), bank details (9pc), attachments (13pc) and other confidential text (8pc), it’s claimed.
A survey by data security company Clearswift of 600 senior business decision makers and 1,200 employees across the UK, US, Germany and Australia, also found that employees regularly receive these unintentional emails, as well as being guilty of sending them, highlighting an inbound and outbound opportunity for data leakages. 27pc of employees claim to have received emails containing personal information in error from people outside of their company, with 26pc also admitting to receiving attachments in error and 12pc saying they had wrongly received personal bank details.
Dr Guy Bunker SVP products at Clearswift, said: “With GDPR [general data protection regulation], the new tenet of shared responsibility makes the problem of receiving and sharing unauthorised information a serious issue. Email communication is a real pitfall for organisations trying to comply with the regulation. Stray bank details and ‘hidden’ information in attachments, spreadsheets or reports can create a serious data loss risk. The occasional email going awry may seem innocuous, but when multiplied by the amount of employees within a business, the risk becomes more severe and could lead to a firm falling foul of the new GDPR penalties; up to 4pc of global turnover, or even those in place already, such as The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. If contravened this can lead to a firm having the ability to process data removed, which could see some businesses grind to a halt.”
The research also found that upon receiving a misplaced email, 31pc of employees said that they would read the email, with 12pc even admitting they would scroll through to read the entire email chain. Some 45pc of employees did say that they would alert the sender to their mistake, giving them the opportunity to take some action, while about a quarter, 27pc said they would delete the email from their inboxes and deleted items; leaving an element of uncertainty.
Less than half (45pc) of employees were familiar with the agreed process or course of action to take upon receiving an email from someone in another company where they were not the intended recipient, and 22pc admitted there was no formal process in place whatsoever in their organisation for such situations. Bunker, pictured, added: “To offset the inevitable risk associated with email communications, companies need a clear strategy, which encompasses people, processes and technology.
“Instilling the values of being a ‘good data citizen’ can engender a sense of data consciousness in the workplace, ensuring that employees are aware of responsible disclosure, and with whom this responsibility sits upon receiving an email in error. However, a formally agreed process or course of action is also a must. There is not a silver bullet and technology can once again offer assurances to help mitigate risks. Adaptive Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies can automate the detection and protection of critical information contained in emails and attachments, removing only the information which breaks policy and leaving the rest to continue on to its destination.”
