*This post may contain Affiliate Links which means we may earn from qualifying purchases you make via our website. Check out our Affiliate policy and what this means here.
Today, businesses make data-driven decisions in order to have a competitive edge. If your business deals with personal data from customers, it is required to be compliant with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements – this means disclosing how it handles data and ensuring that data remains safe.
Why You Should Use Azure Information Protection for GDPR Emails
Sending sensitive data internally or to recipients outside your company carries a certain risk. Every email you send could lead to a disclosure of sensitive data, which constitutes a breach of GDPR. Therefore, investing in the protection of emails and files that are sent is crucial.
Azure Information Protection help keep your emails safe through advanced encryption and protects data at a file level with any attachments you might share too.
It’s a great solution that we recommend to our clients and one we can deploy seamlessly.
While GDPR email compliance may seem like just another regulatory hassle, it is actually an opportunity to invest into your company’s digital security. The most recent data from the Ponemon Institute shows that the global cost of a data breach is increasing steadily, and in 2018, it has reached $3.86 million.
If that’s not enough to convince you, why not use IBM’s data breach cost calculator and see what yours could actually cost.
The Latest Data Breach Report Shows a Troubling Trend
A data breach carries serious consequences, and every business operation will suffer – financial, sales, marketing, safety, you name it. The 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study states there are three main causes of a data breach, with percentages of attack globally being:
- Malicious or criminal attack – the main reason for 48% of all breaches
- System malfunction– the cause of 25% of all breaches
- Human error – the cause of 27% of all breaches
The report shows that human error was the reason behind a data breach more often than a system malfunction was, while malicious and criminal attack took first place.
Note: It’s important to state that human error only includes insiders who were careless, while malicious attacks also include insiders, third parties, and contractors who caused a data breach intentionally.
In the UK specifically, malicious and criminal attacks were the reason of 50% of all breaches, human error was behind 26%, with system glitch causing only 24% of all data breaches.
This means as high as:
76% of all GDPR breaches in the UK can be caused by either negligence or malicious intent.
Which can be vastly reduced when using a file or email encryption like Azure’s Information Protection
How AIP for GDPR Emails Keeps You Compliant
Azure Information Protection (AIP) is a cloud-based service that allows you to protect any sensitive and confidential data through encryption. You can protect local data you keep on your devices or data that you store in the cloud. When you send that data outside of your company, the encryption remains in place because it’s active at a file-level.
This means that even if you’re compromised, documents that are recovered cannot be read or unencrypted. Plus, intercepted emails cannot be read unless the intended user verifies themselves.
Ultimately, AIP can’t stop your users from making a mistake, but it can support them and arm them with the tools to protect company data properly.
Azure Information Protection Protects Against Malicious Intent
For example, if one of your employees or third-party recipients wants to email a file to an unauthorised person, they won’t be able to do so. Plus, AIP has a great feature called Do Not Forward for GDPR compliant emails. When this option is used, the recipient must first be authenticated to even view the email, and this is all they can do. They can’t forward the email or print, or screenshot. This ensures the email is for their eyes only and that they cannot execute a data breach by forwarding onto non-approved users that would lead to GDPR violation.
Documents attached to these emails are also counted as DO NOT FORWARD and will have the same restrictions.
Azure Information Protection Activity
Not only does AIP limit who can view the data, but it also tracks how that data is being used. By doing so, it ensures that data is safe at all times and that GDPR compliance standards are met. Plus, if you suspect there’s a risk that the data could be used in a way that violates GDPR regulations, you can even revoke access to it.
There are a range of other uses for Azure Information Protection to help keep your company emails and files protected. If you need help learning the reigns or want to deploy Azure Information Protection Yourselves, get started today by clicking here.
