Thumbscrew Approach To Secure Email

Recent revelations that a BBC mailing list had been hacked and the users on the list spammed with scams and/or computer viruses, highlighted the dangers that spam poses modern companies. While it is likely that many of the people who signed up to this list were using their personal e-mail addresses, it’s a dead-cert that some were using their business addresses. And this highlights a growing problem amongst firms, namely the increasing use of company mailboxes for personal messages.

The BBC e-mail list break-in clearly shows why companies should - wherever possible - mandate that staff do not use their company mailbox for personal e-mail. If they do, place your employees hands into a thumbscrew and crush their fingers slowly until they promise never to do it again.

If one or more members of staff at a company had signed up to the BBC mailing list in question, then that employee has effectively opened the company’s IT resource up to a spam and/or malware attack. Granted, the end result is outside of the staffer’s control, but it does explain why staff should not use their company mailboxes for personal messages. Through the use of policy enforcement software on company IT resources and deploying effective anti-spam plus security software, it is possible to minimise the possible effects of misuse of company e-mail resources.

That isn’t to say that it’s possible to stop the company IT system from being infected as a result, but the BBC incident shows - quite clearly - why firms should have a company policy banning the use of staff mailboxes for personal use. I expect the sale of medieval torture devices to increase after this post...