Email data loss prevention

How to prevent accidental email sending

by Egress
Published on 1st Jan 2020

Prevent accidental emails

  • Reduce the risk of mis-sent emails. In a fast-paced workplace, it is easy to mistype an email address or copy in the wrong person by mistake, especially when using autocomplete in an email client. Egress enables users to identify errors and security risks before they hit send.
  • Identify incorrect recipients. Egress uses machine learning to analyze the sender’s email history and the message content to spot when an incorrect recipient is added, such as one who doesn’t usually receive sensitive content or hasn’t been emailed before. The sender is alerted with details of the possible risk. They can then correct mistakes or, if the address is right but risk remains, add additional security measures to protect confidential information.
  • Policy-based prevention. If the sender ignores risk guidance, the email can be blocked or auto-encrypted by the organization’s security policy, so risk is controlled and data stays secure.

Find out how Egress Prevent stops accidental email sends 

Can you stop, un-send or cancel emails?

  • Adapt to changing security requirements. Even if an email is sent to the correct person, staff may want to stop, cancel or recall it. Although difficult to stop or cancel an email once it has been sent, Egress allows users or administrators to dynamically revoke access to email messages and file attachments at the touch of a button, even after they have arrived at the recipient’s inbox. This allows users to effectively unsend an email and keep sensitive information safe.

Protect confidential information

  • Control accidental email data breach risk. Misaddressed emails are one of the most common forms of accidental insider data breach, affecting thousands of organizations every year. Sending confidential data to the wrong email recipient is an easy mistake to make, but a difficult one to prevent through education, because it is unintentional.
  • Support employees to prevent errors and improve data security. When it comes to data protection and compliance, a business is just as liable for employee mistakes as it is for deliberate acts of negligence. Prompting users to spot mis-sends before they happen and giving them the ability to revoke access to emails after sending adds a further level of control and intelligence to breach prevention activities. This improves the organization’s data protection posture and limits accidental sharing of confidential information.

Learn how Egress Protect helps you send secure, encrypted emails

I'd like to get more technical

  • Machine learning and graph database technology identifies high-risk recipients. Egress analyses the recipient’s domain to assess its integrity and authenticity, plus any previous history of communication with it, to establish trust. The sender’s email history and typical behaviour are examined and patterns of individual recipients and groups identified, so anomalous recipients are spotted when they enter the address field.
  • Egress flags potential errors, including mis-typed addresses, unexpected recipients and potentially unsafe destinations, so the user can correct mistakes and apply additional security if necessary.

Discover more about Egress machine learning

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