More than half of the Dutch do not consider e-mail suitable for sending confidential information. Yet this does happen all the time. About three quarters regularly receive a confidential document in their own inbox, containing information about health, a mortgage or other private matter. This is evident from one research among 400 Dutch, on behalf of SecuMailer. That is a solution that offers secure mailing, without any extra hassle.
Over the past 20 years, e-mail has become one of the most used communication channels in our country. Companies, governments and other organizations now also use it extensively to share information with customers and citizens. And that is where things regularly go wrong. “E-mailing is fast and convenient, but it does not guarantee that the information will arrive safely. For example, the Rijksmuseum Twenthe paid 2 million euros to cyber criminals earlier this year. They had intercepted an invoice that had been sent by e-mail and subsequently changed the account number ”, Yvonne Hoogendoorn of SecuMailer explains.
Awkward to use
There are governments and companies that opt for a secure mail solution. The privacy law also imposes this on them. This states that authorities must take extra measures to send confidential information securely. This often leads to extra actions for users. A message will appear in their inbox stating: An important email is waiting for you. Not everyone finds this way of communication equally useful, it turns out. More than half of people have trouble opening the message and almost a quarter of people sometimes forget to retrieve the message. “So the question is whether everyone actually reads such an important message, with medical information or a fine, for example. As a result, authorities are switching back to regular e-mail as a way of sending confidential information. 73% of Dutch people regularly receive these types of messages unsecured in the inbox. “
Personal information
Incidentally, false invoices are not the only danger of unsecured mailing. Consider also an application for a mortgage, interview report with a mediator, a payslip, information about a doctor’s visit or tax information. “That’s all personal information that you don’t want cyber criminals to get into. Our research shows that 94% of the Dutch think it is important that e-mails are properly secured, especially when it concerns private data, ”says Hoogendoorn.
Email securely without hassle
SecuMailer’s mission is to solve this problem. It makes secure emailing easy and accessible to everyone. “We have managed to keep the security of emails completely out of sight. That means no extra actions. The messages are very well secured and are sent and received like a normal e-mail. This makes this actually the first solution that also takes into account the convenience of the recipient, ”says Hoogendoorn. It is mainly municipalities, care providers and business services that are now discovering the convenience of SecuMailer.
“We encrypt the connection, check the authenticity of the message, check whether the sender and recipient are not pretending to be someone else and only then do we send the message. All this happens out of sight of the users, who therefore experience no extra hassle. In this way we manage to send 95% of all e-mails safely. We only use alternative delivery methods for unsafe situations. ”
A summary of the research is here to find.
Source: SecuMailer
–
