Why reviewing email security should be at the top of your ‘to do’ list

91% of cyber-attacks begin with email

98% of organisations were hit by email phishing attacks in 2020

In 2021, phishing attacks increased by 22.42% compared to the previous year

Email-related breaches accounted for 17% of all reported data breaches in 2020

The stats speak for themselves! It’s clear that email is by far the easiest way for hackers to gain access to an organisation.

In an increasingly digital world, email remains one of the most common forms of communication, both for personal and professional purposes. In your holiday park business specifically, you will collect and store a significant amount of customer data including personal and financial information. This data is more often than not transmitted through email; it’s likely that you’ll routinely exchange multiple emails with your guests – during reservation bookings, before they arrive for their break, during their stay with any customer service interactions and post-departure too. Each of these touchpoints has the potential to be a cyber threat risk.

Add to that the fact that email attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and harder to spot, and it’s apparent that ensuring the security of your emails should be paramount.

So what can you do to protect your holiday park business?

Stop threats before they reach the inbox! Fortifying your digital communications to protect your business, team and data with email filtering defence against unwanted and damaging emails should be a priority to all holiday park operators.

Fortunately, there are a whole array of email security solutions which can help play a vital role in safeguarding the sensitive information you hold about your guests and owners, preventing data breaches and protecting against malicious attacks.

1. Secure email gateways

Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) are one of the most fundamental components of email security infrastructure. They can help you fortify your digital communications and protect your business, team and data with email filtering defence against unwanted, damaging emails.

The gateway acts as a filter between your business’ internal email server and the outside world. It analyses incoming and outgoing email using various techniques such as anti-spam filters, antivirus scans, impersonation detection and content filtering to identify and block malicious or unwanted content.

You can safely give control to your team members to review and release emails from quarantine as required.

Using a SEG not only protects your organisation, team and data with intelligent defence against all email-borne attacks, it improves team productivity too by eliminating time-wasting spam and unsolicited non business-related email from mailboxes.

2. Email encryption

Email encryption is a crucial aspect of secure communication, especially when dealing with sensitive information. Encryption ensures that your emails are transformed into an unreadable format, making them inaccessible to unauthorised individuals. It adds an extra layer of protection, preventing interception and eavesdropping. Encryption is definitely something that holiday park operators should consider with their email communication to owners which might include sensitive financial details about their account – site fees and gas & electricity bills to name a few examples.

3. Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is an effective security measure which adds an extra layer of verification to your email account. With 2FA, users must provide two forms of identification before accessing their email, typically a password and a unique code sent to their mobile device. This method significantly reduces the risk of unauthorised access, as even if a password is compromised, the attacker would still require the second factor to gain entry.

This solution should be considered, particularly by holiday park operators who have team members that routinely share access to desktop or laptop devices.

4. Employee awareness and training

While technological solutions are essential for email security, it is equally important to invest in team awareness and training. Human error is often the weakest link in the security chain, with employees inadvertently clicking on malicious links and falling victim to email attacks.

Educating team members about email security best practices, such as identifying phishing emails, recognising suspicious attachments, and following password hygiene, can significantly reduce the risk of successful attacks. Regular training sessions should be implemented to foster a culture of security-conscious employees.

 

A secure email gateway solution and cyber training portal come as standard as part of our Managed IT service for holiday park operators, providing our clients with robust security against a full spectrum of email-based attacks. Find out more about how we can help protect your business here by booking a 30 minute discovery call.