Small businesses communicate using email, whether to share information with in-house staff or connect with potential customers, businesses can’t do without it.

However, email has also become vulnerable to cyberattacks. Every day, small businesses in the US lose thousands of dollars to email scams, popularly known as Business Email Compromise (BEC).

This has made it necessary for small businesses to keep themselves up to date with the best email security practices, and hopefully put scammers who cause these financial losses out of business.

In this guide I share the 5 best email security practices every small business should know.

1. Conduct Phishing Awareness Training

Email breaches often happen due to employees’ lack of knowledge and/or negligence. The first step to boosting email security as a small business is to increase the level of awareness among people who work for you. Train them on email threat protection, which helps employees recognize and avoid any form of phishing emails that hackers use to gain access to business email accounts.

 Here is some basic guidance: 

  • Be suspect of all unusual requests via email 
  • Don’t click on random links shared with you via email 
  • Understand phishing emails and how they work
  • Disregard emails that land in your spam folder (and only click them if you can confirm the source )

When your employees are aware of these basic practices, they become less vulnerable to the tricks of scammers.

2. Train Employees on How to Respond to Email Attachments and Links

It’s easy to fall for malicious software by clicking email links and attachments. This is another reason to train your employees on how to respond to them. Teach them how to spot genuine and legitimate email attachments and links, including verifying the email address of the sender. This will help them avoid the malicious ones hackers create to spread malware, which can give them access to business email accounts.

I have seen businesses bring in cybersecurity experts to train their employees on how to respond to phishing attachments. You can also do this through web meetings and, in the end, you can test employees’ knowledge by deliberately sharing phishing attachments when they least expect it to see who clicks on it. 

3. Enable Multi-factor Authentication

Enabling multi-factor authentication can save you in the event your email account password has been hacked. It makes it harder for scammers to get access to your email account, as they will be required to pass the authentication hurdles. Whether a secret questions known to you alone, hardware tokens, biometrics like facial recognition, fingerprints, or voice recognition, enabling multi-factor authentication is an email security measure you should consider.

4. Avoid Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi is free, but it can cost you if you are sending or receiving emails using public Wi-Fi that hackers prey on. 

For instance, a hacker can intercept your connection when you are logging into your email account using an unencrypted public Wi-Fi, and access your email password and other sensitive details without you knowing. 

That’s how BEC starts, and before you know it, they have studied your email communications, getting ready to use all their tricks on you or your customers.

5. Use Encrypted Connections

Anyone can intercept your data if it isn’t encrypted. That’s why using an encrypted connection is strongly advised. Use a reliable VPN to encrypt your traffic and hide your IP when logging into your email, or when sending or receiving emails. 

Encryption boosts email security by ensuring no one who accesses the message can read it. 

In conclusion, you will be at the mercy of hackers if you don’t take your business email security seriously. I have shown you different measures that will help. It’s up to you to start implementing them immediately to block hackers from defrauding you or your customers.

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