Phishing attacks are on the rise and your employees are the weakest link in your company’s cybersecurity system. Can you be sure that you’re 100% prepared for a sophisticated phishing attack or social engineering attempt?
What are SEGs?
SEGs or secure email gateways are systems that are created to prevent the transfer of dangerous emails. These dangerous emails can include anything that breaks the company policy, contains malware or sensitive information that’s not meant to be sent via email, spam and marketing emails. Secure email gateways essentially act like a filter that screens both inbound and outbound messages. All the inbound emails that may contain malware, spam or phishing content get filtered out before they reach the recipient. At the same time, SEGs encrypt all outbound emails and block any emails that contain sensitive company data that are not authorized for email transfer.
Advantages of using secure email gateways
Businesses that use SEGs can take advantage of their numerous benefits. One of the main goals of secure email gateways is to prevent cyber attacks that criminals attempt to carry out through email – this significantly decreases your employees’ exposure to potentially harmful phishing emails. SEGs also do a great job at filtering out spam emails even though this function is offered by many email providers for free. Many but not all SEGs also prevent loss of sensitive data, which can occur if an employee attempts to transfer important information via email maliciously or my mistake. Finally, secure email gateways can help your company meet various security requirements imposed by regulatory agencies and other organizations.
Frequently asked questions about secure email gateways
Do a lot of companies use secure email gateways?
The use of secure email gateways largely depends on the size of the company – most large companies utilize SEGs as another layer of their cybersecurity protection, while relatively few small and mid-sized companies use SEGs because of their cost and complexity.
Do small companies need to use secure email gateways?
An SEG is a great investment no matter what size your business is and how many employees you have, as it can protect you from significant losses in case of a security breach.
Are SEGs 100% effective?
Unfortunately, secure email gateways don’t completely protect your business from phishing and social engineering attempts carried out over email. It can sometimes take a while for SEGs to identify new phishing websites and some people can fall victim to the attack before that time.
How to use SEGs effectively?
The best way to improve the efficiency of SEGs is to train your employees to recognize phishing attempts and keep your company information safe – this is where HackControl’s services come in.
