Data-leak prevention among CIOs' top email security concerns

Contributed by Roumiana Deltcheva (Monday, December 27, 2010) | Category : Email security

Data loss is among the top concerns for chief information officers when dealing with email security, according to a recent report from CIO magazine.

These executives are constantly balancing the tasks of promoting employee collaboration, while also ensuring company data is protected. But it just so happens that email is both the default collaboration tool and one of the most vulnerable points on a company's network.

For this reason, IT executives and managers are constantly focusing data-leak prevention initiatives on email.

"Proprietary and confidential data are among the most critical assets of any organization, and CIOs know they have to treat it that way," Sean Brown recently wrote for CIO.

Other top email security concerns identified in the report are data liability and reputation. Companies are now forced to meet data security compliance measures, as failing to do so could result in a major public relations fiasco.

Separate recent reports have also argued CIOs must do more to protect data in email. Security measures must also cover personal email accounts, as employees commonly use them at work, sometimes breaking corporate email policies.