email policies

Corporate email: A portal to potential disaster

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Email continues to be a huge source of risk to enterprises. Proofpoint, an email security and data loss prevention company, released its fourth-annual study of outbound email and content security issues recently. The company obviously has a horse in this race, but nevertheless, the numbers are fairly interesting.

Respondents estimated that nearly 20 percent of all outbound email poses a legal, regulatory or financial risk. More than a third of surveyed companies investigated a suspected email leak of confidential or proprietary information in the past 12 months. Other findings: more than one-quarter of surveyed companies (27.3 percent) have terminated employees for violating email policies in the past 12 months, while 45.5 percent have disciplined employees for violating email policies during the past year. 29.1 percent of the largest enterprises (20,000 employees or more) reported that employee email was subpoenaed in the last 12 months. To counter these threats, a significant number of companies are hiring staff specifically to read or analyze the contents of outbound email.

For the full report:
- see this press release

Email retention is more than just common sense

Tue, 01 May 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Retaining email in some form or another is more critical these days, thanks to a host of regulations that require it. But a new study notes that only about 14 percent of all corporate email accounts are being backed up and archived for future access, although that study, from the Radicati Group, also indicates that the number is expected to rise to nearly 70 percent by 2011. The study also points out that without an archiving record of all relevant messages, regulated companies may be subject to heavy penalties. Choices for deploying an archiving solution include implementing a product in-house or using a product as a hosted service. Today, more than two-thirds of all archiving solutions are sold as on-premises products, although an interest in hosted archiving is growing fast.

Read more about the importance of archiving email:
- read the article at CIO Insight

ALSO:
- read this about email policies being broken in the financial sector
- and this on e-discovery and the CIO

Email regs mandate new storage approach

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:01:37 -0500

If you haven't gotten a good grip on meeting email compliance mandates, your workload has likely gotten a bit heavier, given the new rules that are coming into play. Companies now need to track and store all emails along with other forms of communication such as instant messaging, thanks to new laws okayed by the Supreme Court that take effect this Friday. Specifically, enterprises will need to provide any electronically stored data if involved in a federal trial, as part of the discovery process. It's going to mean lots of organization work and likely the creation of some new policies as well, say experts, as well as documented accounts on how email is managed and stored.

For more on the new email compliance rules:
- read the article at Newsfactor

Related Article: Users don't follow email policies all the time. Article

PLUS: How the insurance industry is approaching email these days. Article

Why email encryption isn't all roses

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:01:36 -0400

At first glance, email encryption looks like a godsend for companies trying to protect their confidential data. But end-to-end email encryption poses some challenges, especially on the legal front, that CIOs and other corporate leaders need to be up to speed on. It all comes down to enforcing the personal use and email policies that you hopefully have in place.

For more on email encryption legal risks:
- read the article at Network Computing