IT Red Flags: You’re Not Sharing Files With Your Email, Right?

IT Red Flags: You’re Not Sharing Files With Your Email, Right?

The first installment in our blog series about IT Red Flags explores a common and dangerous habit — sharing files with your email. Not only is it unsafe, but it’s also inconvenient.

In case you didn’t know, you no longer need to email files to people. It’s outdated, and inconvenient, especially when you consider the other file sharing options available to you today.

Why Should You Avoid Sharing Files Through Email?

It’s Not Safe

When you make a habit of sending files as attachments in emails, you’re threatening your security in two ways:

• You’re leaving all that shared data behind a single layer of cybersecurity — your email password. Unlike data stored and shared directly, when you upload data as an attachment, you’re leaving it there for cybercriminals to access after they’ve hacked your email account.
• You’re making your business a bigger target for phishing. By making this file-sharing method an accepted practice, you make it easier for cybercriminals to trick you and your coworkers into trusting email attachments. This is why 65% of organizations in the US have been hit by phishing. People are more likely to assume an attachment is safe to download if it’s the primary way their organization shares files.

It’s Not Convenient

The simple fact is, there are better ways to share files in the modern workplace. Taking the time to compose an email, select the file, wait for it to upload, and then wait for it to download on the recipient’s end is an undeniable waste of time for you and your contacts.

It’s Not Compliant

As a DD organization, you’re subject to HIPAA compliance regulations. Do you think it’s safe to share HIPAA protected data over email, given the security concerns we raised above?

How Should You Share Files?

There are so many solutions and options available for secure and convenient file-sharing today. Any of them is a better option than emailing attachments:

• Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace that brings people together to collaborate, communicate, and share content. It offers a flexible environment making everything visible, integrated, and accessible to your staff. It’s a messaging application where all conversations, meetings, and notes can be accessed by everyone in one place, and it’s a hub where you can work together with the security and real-time communication you need for collaboration. Edit, access, and share files with simplified search capabilities make it easy to find what you need, alongside access to all Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files in real-time from one convenient hub.
• Microsoft SharePoint: As the name implies, Microsoft SharePoint is designed allowing you to share files, collaborate, edit, and more with anywhere from a single coworker to an entire team. Files in SharePoint are not owned or associated with one specific person – everyone on the team has read and write access. Microsoft SharePoint is a cloud-based platform that enables companies to backup, store, retrieve, and collaborate on spreadsheets, documents, presentations, databases, and much more. It seamlessly integrates with the more popular of Microsoft’s products, Microsoft 365, and has the capacity of being configured for a wide variety of applications and workflows. SharePoint’s major selling point is its ability to facilitate file-based data collaboration between shareholders within your company as well as collaboration with clients through permission-based access.
• Microsoft OneDrive: OneDrive is like a cloud-based version of the “My Documents” folder that you’ve come to rely on with your PC for many years. When you create a document or need to open up one from the past, it’ll likely be stored in “My Documents” (ideally, organized a few subfolders down). With OneDrive, it’s the same idea, but instead of being stored in “My Documents” on your local work server, it’s stored offsite in the cloud, which means you can access that same file from your home office, while you’re on your way to work, or even while you’re away traveling for business. It even offers an offline sync engine so you can keep working when you’re disconnected from the Internet. Whereas SharePoint is designed for file-sharing purposes, OneDrive is better when you want to share under very specific conditions, whether in a limited capacity or within a specific time frame.

Need Expert Assistance With File Sharing?

Don’t keep sharing files with your email because you don’t know a better way to do so. You can eliminate this red flag for good — and we can help

The GO Concepts team is here to help – we can show you how to harness, secure, and use compliant file sharing capabilities to help boost your team’s efficiency in collaborating with one another.

Here’s how:

1. Contact our team and arrange a free consultation at a time that works for you.
2. Describe how you want to share files, and we will provide secure recommendations.
3. Use your new sharing solution to securely conveniently and compliantly share files across your organization.