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Making Your Email Private and Secure

IPadlock artn the vast number of technology advancements over the last 10 to 20 years, which one has done more for almost-immediate communications than email? Yet, tens of millions of messages are sent every day without much concern about the security and availability associated with very private information.
It seems we are much more concerned about the security of snail-mail than email. You wouldn't open a letter, bill or anything else addressed to someone else, but we have no problem sending an email across the web without making sure the information is kept private and secure.

Accountants routinely send an incredible number of email messages with extremely sensitive and personal data related to tax, assurance and other matters, so what can they do to prevent the loss of sensitive information?

Very simply: Restrict access and/or make the email and information unreadable.

Encryption is Best
First, there is physical protection. In many office settings, anyone who wants to hack into someone else's computer and steal information can do very easily. Just think about the number of workers who keep passwords on yellow sticky notes next to their computers, or those employees who use commonly known names as passwords. Taking a few precautions to protect physical security and privacy cannot be overlooked.

Second, the best way to keep information private and protected is to encrypt email. When you encrypt text, data or other communications, a code prevents any person or machine from seeing or hearing the information. An encrypted file will appear as scrambled text unless you have the password or key necessary to decrypt the information.

There are two types of keys, public and private. A public key is given to anyone you choose, while a private key, also known as Public Key Infrastructure or PKI, is something you keep to yourself.

Public and private key pairs authenticate content. A pair of mathematically related cryptographic keys is used, one to encrypt your information and the other as the only key that can decrypt it. If you have one of these, you cannot use it to easily generate the other. The public key can be seen by everyone; the private key that authenticates its bearer.

If someone wants to send you a message that is meant only for your eyes, they would encrypt it using your public key. Your private key is required to decrypt this message, so even if someone intercepted the email, it would be useless gibberish. When you send an email to someone else, you can use your private key to digitally "sign" the message so that the recipient can be sure it is from you.

It is very important to get in the habit of encrypting all of messages, not just the ones that are confidential or sensitive. It may seem extreme, but it is much more difficult for a dedicated attacker to decrypt your information if you protect as much as possible.

Where do you find encryption technologies? The best tactic is to ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) for recommendations. Your ISP probably has its own encryption software it uses or may brand someone else's software to their own needs. Otherwise, a simple web search will render many resources for all needs and sizes of companies.

Federal and State Regulations
In addition to protecting email, accountants who perform privacy advisory services and attestation engagements must follow federal and state laws, rules and standards. Because these are too numerous to list in this article, here are several online resources for more information:
National Conference of State Legislatures - includes state laws related to Internet privacy.
United States Government - this site includes a comprehensive listing of all kinds of laws and regulations.
AICPA Privacy Center - the American Institute of CPAs' Privacy Task Force has compiled a full set of federal and state regulations.

 

Hugh Duffy MBA

Hugh Duffy is co-founder and chief marketing officer for Build Your Firm, a leading practice development firm dedicated to the accounting industry.  Based in Madison, Conn., Build Your Firm works with small accounting firms providing accounting marketing, practice management and Web site development services

Prior to co-founding Build Your Firm in 2003, Hugh was a Vice President of Internet Marketing for Business & Legal Reports (BLR), a business-to-business publisher for small and medium sized businesses.  Prior to BLR, Hugh was a Director with a publicly traded global internet media company, 24/7 Real Media responsible for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships.  The foundation of Hugh’s marketing background is fourteen years of consumer packaged goods marketing with Schick, Nabisco, Clorox and Coca-Cola. 

Hugh has 25 years of marketing experience, an MBA degree in marketing from the University of Rochester and a B.S. in finance from the University of Maryland.  While at Maryland, Hugh was on a golf scholarship and his coach was Fred Funk, PGA Tour player.  Today, Hugh’s golf game suffers and he is content watching his two kids play college lacrosse.


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PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.