Get the Message: A Business Guide to Surviving the Email Security Crisis

by Tom Gillis

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976108607
• ISBN13: 9780976108603
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Messaging News Press
• Length: 134 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Help in the battle against the problems when using e-mail

There is no question that e-mail is now an essential tool for almost all businesses. For many, it has even supplanted the telephone as the most frequently used tool for communicating with customers. The fax machine is also being replaced, as many businesses use the much more convenient electronic fax. However, the ease of use is also the characteristic that is creating the problem. Since it is so inexpensive to send an electronically generated e-mail, on the order of billionths of a cent, there is no financial burden to sending out billions of messages. Therefore, we are all bombarded with junk e-mails, called spam, to the point that the vast majority of e-mail messages are now junk. This problem has become a severe burden on productivity. Billions of dollars are now spent annually when workers simply scan and delete the bulk messages. The second problem is that the e-mail can contain dangerous code, which can be split into three broad categories: *) Worms - code which simply propagates, clogging the mail systems so that legitimate messages cannot get through. *) Viruses - code which propagates and does damage, such as deleting files. *) Spyware - code which resides on a machine and sends information back to a central computer. This situation poses one of the greatest threats to the modern business and it is up to every user of e-mail to join the fight in reducing the threat. Gillis does an excellent job in explaining the dangers of the unwise use of e-mail. While it is difficult to see how spam can be eliminated from our daily lives, there are many things that can be done to reduce the impact. He states the advantages and disadvantages of each tactic that can be used in your defense in a manner that all users can understand. Very little technical language is used and each chapter ends with a summary of the major points. One of the best and necessary defenses against the dangers inherent in e-mail is for every company to articulate and explain a sensible policy for e-mail use to all employees. If a hard copy of that policy were to be handed to each employee along with a mandate to read this book, then many problems would be alleviated. For the policy will explain what they should do and this book will demonstrate the why.