If the media is to be believed then your emails are as private as a full page advert in the daily papers. In reality we don’t pay too much attention to our own email security as most of us aren’t in the public eye. However we shouldn’t be complacent for two good reasons.

There are people who devote their lives to breaking into the IT systems of organisations – and not just The Bank of England. Countless small businesses have been victims of hacking. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ 2013 hacking survey found that 87 per cent of small businesses across all sectors had experienced a breach in the last year (source: www.theregister.co.uk). This is scary stuff and especially so when we are the custodians of sensitive or private information belonging to our clients. We can’t afford to be complacent when the reputation of our business is so heavily reliant on discretion.

Much easier to relate to is the issue of human error. It’s a rare person who hasn’t sent an email to the wrong recipient and burned with shame after the fact. According to the same survey referred to above, 36 per cent of the “worst security breaches” were caused by inadvertent human error. Accidentally emailing your HNW client’s latest accounts to your Aunty Maureen may not be the end of the world but imagine if it is sent in error to another client? It’s so easy to do – you will made a big error and potentially lost two clients in the process.

We recommend a secure portal like docSAFE. You communicate through an electronic hub – alerting your client to a new communication that they go and retrieve for themselves. It is managed through state of the art, highly secure technology and eliminates the potential for both of the horror stories above.