The scourge of email scams and phishing continues to rise relentlessly. Whilst some organisations have taken steps to protect themselves, many still use email to transfer confidential information to recipients both within and beyond their own domain. A recently-published article highlights this, and the risks to corporate governance that are involved.

Professional practitioners are among the worst offenders. Much of the information that they generate on behalf of their clients is highly confidential and is sent by email as an attachment. Not only does this expose their clients to the loss or theft of the data, it is inefficient and can ultimately lead to serious difficulties for the practitioners themselves. In the UK it is estimated that more than 70% of law firms, for example, still use open email to carry confidential client information.

Sometimes the clients themselves are a problem …

Accounting firms, for example, provide services for a wide range of different clients, everything from global corporates to the local butcher, baker and candlestick-maker. At the smaller end of this scale many clients are resistant to using secure information sharing services as they find it easier to simply receive financial information as an attachment to an email. Sometimes it is securely stored away, but often it is not, leading to repeated requests for the information to be re-sent by the accountant, multiplying the scale of the risk.

VaultConnect, partners of Safe4 Information Management, have expressed the consequences of these “can you just …” requests for information. Typically they result in an interruption of approximately 23 minutes to stop a current task, go and find the requested information, respond to the client, and then try to resume the task that has been interrupted. And the result of this is to expose both the client and the accountant to increased risk.

There are better and safer options

The Safe4 service has been designed explicitly to protect any organisation that needs to share confidential information with external or internal parties, whether it be in unstructured form (such as documents), or structured (data held in columnar format, similar to spreadsheets and simple databases). Manningtons, an accounting firm in Sussex, have recently chosen to significantly expand their use of Safe4 in order to protect themselves and their clients from loss or theft of sensitive information. Read about their experiences here. The result of this approach has enabled Manningtons to enhance their compliance with both the Data Protection Act (which now embodies the recently-enacted European General Data Protection Regulation), and with the guidance issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. This strongly advises accounting firms not to send confidential information to clients by email, even if the client has actually requested that they do so.

Safe4 utilises a highly secure vault to hold information relating to each client. This can be shared with the clients themselves, allowing two-way transfer of confidential documents and data. The very granular permissions provided by Safe4, as well as comprehensive audit trails and reporting functions, add further levels of protection to the professional practitioners as well as their clients.

Contact Safe4

For more information on how Safe4 can help your organisation to achieve enhanced levels of security and compliance with regulatory frameworks, please get in touch. We will be delighted to assist you.