Email security is the practice of protecting email accounts and communications from unauthorized access, loss, or compromise. It involves the strategic set of measures and techniques used to protect email-based communications, effectively preserving the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of email messages.

Email security helps protect an organization’s attack surface from cyber threats that use email account attack vectors such as phishing and spam to gain unauthorized access to the network. By following email security best practices for cybersecurity including email accounts, organizations can reduce the spread of malware, such as ransomware and viruses, to prevent successful cyber attacks.

Email is a critical component of organizational communication because it enables users to communicate quickly, easily, and with a variety of devices. Email security is important because email contains sensitive information, is used by everyone in the organization, and is therefore one of a company’s largest targets for attacks.

The shift to cloud-based email comes with several benefits, but cloud-based email has become a tempting attack surface for cyber criminals. Email is a top threat vector because it is a ubiquitous tool that everyone in an organization uses. It is in an open format that can be read on any device without decryption once it is intercepted.