Email security has suffered in the past several years due to the commoditization of basic email security services. If every spam solution is the same, then they can be changed out to just about any other solution out there, removing quality and replacing it with quantity. We have seen this trend take antivirus–the fact that free antivirus exists and many people prefer it over some paid solutions is a testament to this–but will spam protection move in the same direction?
Let’s take a look at the current state of email security, and what the future holds for perhaps the most important method of business communication solutions.
Email Security is on the Rise
For a long time, businesses were focused on keeping threats out of their infrastructure through the use of solutions like firewalls that were controlled centrally. Once email servers entered the picture, these types of solutions became less valuable. Nowadays, many of the services offered by security companies are largely the same at the root level. Ultimately, the differences in email security that you’ll see between companies aren’t in the actual antivirus and spam protection features, but in the additional options and features that they come with. It’s practically necessary in order for any solution to actually stand out from others out there.
To an extent, this is a good thing, as organizations are forced to innovate rather than remain stagnant in their service offerings. This is why we always express the importance of enterprise security solutions rather than just spam protection on its own. Centralization is absolutely critical to the success of these solutions. If you have multiple solutions located all across the network, it’s not nearly as effective or efficient as it can be, and you certainly don’t get the comprehensive network security–email included–that you need to keep your organization as secure as possible.
What You Can Do
To keep your business as secure as possible for the future, you’ll need to think about how email plays a part within your business. Chances are you use it for both internal and external communications, which makes it the ideal target for scammers and spammers to infiltrate your organization. Your business needs to secure its email solution through the use of encryption and firewalls, but it should also be prepared to handle advanced attacks such as denial-of-service and directory harvesting. If you fail to secure your business from these types of threats, they could create bigger problems for your organization down the road.
Net Activity offers a comprehensive, centralized security solution in our Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool. It combines several solutions into one convenient package, including spam protection, antivirus, a firewall, and a content filter, all to mitigate and eliminate potential issues for your network security.
