Email archiving failures top list of primary email issues

Contributed by Roumiana Deltcheva (Monday, November 01, 2010) | Category : Email security

An email security vendor recently reported email archiving and eDiscovery failures ranked as the premier problems plaguing enterprise IT departments in a list of the 10 most pressing issues in email security.

Piper Jaffray's failure to archive email over a six-year span received the No. 1 distinction. The investment bank received a $700,000 fine from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for its violation, which also illustrated the effect poor management of electronically stored information can have on eDiscovery practice.

Cyber criminal activity, such as the prevalent "Here You Have" email worm, also gained significant attention in 2010. The worm spread as spam throughout consumer and enterprise networks. Implementing an email security solution with a reliable spam filter is crucial to avoiding attacks.

The report also found data leaks negatively impacts more than 35 percent of businesses. The growth of mobile email solutions played a major role in the prevalence of data loss, as enterprise IT departments work to eliminate risks arising from the youthful technology.

Beyond enterprise IT, colleges and universities struggled with data loss issues throughout 2010. Most recently, the University of Hawaii responded to reports that personal alumni information was accidentally posted on the web. However, the university system does not believe it was accessed maliciously.