Messaging security awareness

Our security awareness topic for June is electronic messaging - primarily email with some reference to online chat via Instant Messaging and cellphone SMS/TXT messages.

A lot of social interaction today occurs by electronic means, while organizations are increasingly adopting person-to-person messaging into their business processes for contacting employees, customers, suppliers and various others.  The days are long gone when email was merely a ‘nice-to-have’: email has all but replaced letters, FAXes and memos.

Aside from the email junkies constantly checking their inboxes, most of us start to feel socially isolated if (when!) the messaging technologies let us down (not least me, living and working in the glorious but remote countryside of rural New Zealand).  Availability is clearly an issue, but so too are integrity and confidentiality. Phishing and other social engineering scams assault us from all sides, while many a personal or corporate secret has slipped out in casual conversations via email, SMS/TXT or IM.