Security researchers recently discovered a cache of personal records for sale on the Internet’s black market, including 1.25 billion email addresses, according to the Independent. Finding one email address for every seven people in the world in the care of hackers is alarming. Email continues to be the central repository for the digital transmission and storage of confidential information and remains one of cybercriminals’ prime targets. Cloud storage services are a must for organizations struggling to take control of email security and management.
Keeping on top of email storage and archival is challenging for organizations of any size. Smaller organizations lack the IT resources of their larger peers, making it difficult to process email and ensure that all files are stored safely. Bigger companies have dedicated IT departments, but they also have massive email systems generated by bigger user bases and more diverse device profiles. The expertise and resources required to maintain in-house email storage are usually too costly. Either way, upholding the integrity of protection and system management at all times is beyond the purview of virtually every organization.
Adhering to traditional models of email storage simply won’t suffice in the face of today’s threat landscape. Moving email to cloud storage services, on the other hand, allows organizations to outsource the hardware and storage support to a trusted third party provider, wrote Nashville Business Journal contributor Richard Pinson.
“Hosting your own email requires constant upgrading, patching, backing up and monitoring,” Pinson wrote. “Once email transitions to the cloud, the service provider is responsible for all storage maintenance tasks and provides the most-recent version of their product.”
Cloud storage services are scalable, meaning that an organization won’t pay for what they don’t use. Over the long term, this is a much more cost-effective option than having to update legacy in-house environments every few years to respond to new security and productivity challenges. It only takes one malicious email ending up in a user’s inbox to let hackers in. In this landscape, organizations need the help of a dedicated cloud provider to keep their confidential information safe.