Think and Look Before You Send that Quick Message!

Every month, and sometimes weekly, I see a privacy breach that is a result of a messaging mistake. People need to be more careful about all the types of electronic messages they are sending and not so quick to hit that send button!
Here is the fourth, and final, part of the first article within the June issue of my “IT Compliance in Realtime” journal, “What to Tell Personnel: Messaging Security and Privacy“…


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Think and Look Before You Send that Quick Message!
Advise your personnel to always look closely at any electronic message before they send it, no matter how quickly they want to send it. Provide them with the types of things that they need to consistently check when sending messages. For example:

  • Are all the addresses that you are sending the message to correct?
  • If you are forwarding a message, do you have any documents attached to the message that should not be going along with it?
  • Would the person who sent you a message want you to forward that message? Check with the person to be sure.
  • Do you have any clear-text PII within the message?
  • Have you included any information within the message that the corporate policies direct you to not include?

Consider providing your personnel with a quick reference card or sheet with similar types of advice that they can put up next to their computer and refer to often.
Messaging security and privacy training and awareness communications should cover:

  • Your organization’s messaging policies and procedures
  • Messaging security and privacy tools
  • Messaging hoaxes
  • Malicious code and attachment risks
  • How to spot messages that are spoofing identities
  • Spamming
  • Encryption options and solutions
  • Phishing threats

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