Email security essentials for small businesses

Every business uses email as its primary mode of communication. While the communication needs of small businesses may differ, many are increasingly turning to email because it's seen as the professional channel for client and vendor interactions. However, with this shift, many small businesses mistakenly assume their communications are automatically secure. In reality, cybercriminals actively target small businesses precisely because their email systems often lack basic security protocols.

While threat actors often target enterprises for higher payouts, they see small businesses as low-hanging fruit—easier to exploit with minimal effort. By using clever tactics and AI-powered tools, cybercriminals craft convincing email attacks that can easily deceive recipients into taking harmful actions. When this is combined with a lack of security measures and low awareness, small businesses become especially vulnerable, often suffering significant losses despite the smaller scale.

To stay protected, small business owners must understand the nature of common email threats, the security protocols they should implement, and the key features to look for in an email security solution. We’ll explore all of these areas in this article. 

Why is email security important for small businesses?

The common perception is that threat actors mostly target enterprises because they deal with larger transactions and highly sensitive data that's highly sensitive. But small businesses are often not well-equipped to face cyberattacks. This makes them a common target for threat actors. In fact, cybercriminals are increasingly focusing on bringing down small businesses to reap benefits in a shorter period, with minimal effort. 

Even though small businesses may not handle high-volume transactions compared to enterprises, a cybercriminal gaining access to their email systems means that they can penetrate and get a hold of the entire environment with ease. This gives the threat actor access to bring down the entire business, leading to the owners losing all that they've built. So it's vital for organizations to amp up their security protocols and establish structured training to educate their employees. 

Common scams faced by small businesses

These days, threat actors are cleverly creating attacks that can prey on employees' communication patterns and work towards nudging them to perform the intended actions. Let's take a look at some of them.

Business email compromise (BEC)

In BEC attacks, threat actors impersonate the identity of a higher official such as the CEO, CFO, or other C-suite employees. Threat actors typically impersonate officials with decision-making authority in the company because it becomes easier to convince the employees to take actions such as money transfer and sensitive data sharing. BEC attacks are more likely to be fruitful in a small business context because they may not have established clear protocols and role-based access controls. This makes them highly vulnerable. 

Merger requests

Small businesses are constantly looking to grow. They’re in constant communication with potential partners to expand the reach of their services and to join hands with other bigger companies. Exploiting this, threat actors sometimes pose as enterprises that exhibit interest and are willing to join hands with the smaller business. They push the need to finalize a deal quickly to ensure that the true nature of the email isn't revealed. In the excitement and urgency of having received a request, the small business proceeds to provide account details or process transactions without thinking it through. 

Invoice frauds

Every business uses the services of other companies. They may use email services such as Zoho, Microsoft, or Google. For logistics, they may use delivery services such as DHL or BlueDart. In certain cases, they may have to integrate with payment gateways like PayPal. These businesses regularly generate invoices for the provided services and share them with their clients. Threat actors impersonate these popular brands and send invoices to small businesses so that the money is directed to the cybercriminal's account. Businesses stand to lose huge amounts of money if they fall for such tactics.

Vendor email compromise (VEC)

In VEC attacks, a vendor's email accounts are hacked and taken over by a threat actor. If a business using the vendor's services receives an email from the threat actor, they assume that the email is legitimate and proceed to do what's requested. This could be in the form of money transfers, credential sharing, or divulging other compromising information. Because the email is received from a legitimate email address and one that's previously been contacted, it is an account takeover. Because of the familiar nature of the request, the recipient tends to perform the requested action. 

Tech support scams

Along the same lines of invoice frauds and VEC attacks, threat actors tend to impersonate brands that businesses regularly interact with. They may pose as the brand's tech support team, trying to solve a specific problem, or they may even convince the email recipient that there's a mandatory software update that needs to be done. For this reason, they may request account credentials or login details, leading to a complete takeover of the account. 

Email security best practices

To combat and protect your organization from email-based cyberattacks, businesses can follow several practices. Enforcing these practices across the organization and getting employees to understand their importance can go a long way in embedding them into your company's security culture. 

Use multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Although MFA is well-known as the most simple and basic security measures that organizations can take, many small business owners fail to understand the importance of adding an extra layer of security to their email accounts. In fact, 54% of SMBs fail to implement MFA for their businesses. When MFA is added as part of the login process, businesses can prevent unauthorized entries into their employees' mailboxes, even if their account credentials are leaked through other phishing or malware attacks. It's good practice to mandate this across the board.

Professional email is for work only

In a small business context, where there are fewer employees juggling multiple roles, it's possible that they fail to distinguish between software use for personal and professional purposes. When employees use their work email to sign up for personal apps or to make personal purchases on e-commerce sites, the business email address is shared outside the context of work. If the apps or websites they're using don't process data safely, the email address may end up being shared externally and eventually fall in the wrong hands, making cyberattacks a high possibility. 

Stick to using designated devices

Most organizations provide work laptops and mobile phones for employees. While providing these devices, ensure that your sysadmin advises employees to access work email and other work-related accounts only from their work devices. Most of these devices have built-in programs that can detect suspicious behavior and anti-virus software to spot malware. This prevents valuable business data from being stolen or leaked. Even if your organization doesn't provide separate work devices, ensure that anti-virus and other security software are installed on your employees' machines.

Avoid using public WiFi

Even if you provide top-notch security for your users through encrypted machines, if they use a public WiFi to access their work email or other sensitive business data, it could end up being stolen or hacked by cybercriminals. Public WiFi is a gateway for hackers because the network and the connection aren’t encrypted, enabling hackers to intercept and misuse sensitive information. Ensure that your organization's machines have VPN software installed. In cases where public WiFi is unavoidable, encourage employees to connect using a VPN to keep cyber threats away.

Conduct security awareness trainings

It's vital that organizations educate their employees about the types of threats out there, the forms they take, and how to spot them. Imparting this knowledge must be done through properly structured awareness trainings conducted as part of the orientation process. This ensures that employees are aware of what's expected from them and they follow secure data-handling practices to protect their organization from cybercriminals.

Conduct phishing simulations

Even after the importance of security is conveyed to users, regular simulations need to be conducted to authenticate the efficacy of the training. Simulate phishing emails to your employees and measure their response to such simulations. Not only should they avoid engaging with it, they should also be aware of the right reporting processes to ensure that the organization's admins are notified of such attack attempts. If employees don't keep up the required practices, conduct extensive trainings for the high-risk employees to ensure that all gaps are filled.

Archive your data regularly

Every organization holds valuable, business-critical data such as contracts, intellectual property, financial information, and more in their emails. It's crucial to be prepared to deal with any mishaps, such as intentional or accidental data deletion, account takeovers, and other such threats. Ensure that all of your important email data is archived with an email archiving solution such as Zoho eProtect. Apart from holding a secure copy of your data, this also helps your organization stay compliant with regulatory bodies and improves legal-readiness.

Have an incident response plan

If a security incident strikes, your organization needs to be prepared to handle the incident efficiently and make improvements. Involve all stakeholders and draft a detailed incident response plan. Include how you'll continue doing your business, all of the data backup plans in place, the information that will be shared with your customers, and other details that will reduce downtime and keep your business running. 

Build a security-first culture

Irrespective of the size of the business, an organization's data can be maintained securely only if the employees make security their foremost priority. Employees are your first line of defense. A cyberattack can be effective only if employees take the bait. To prevent this, train your employees to make security the core of your organization's principles and ensure they center their work around this. A security policy can be efficient only if the top-level employees absorb it as part of their culture. This helps all employees understand its importance and follow it efficiently.

Use an email security solution

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly clever in crafting email threats. While cyber-aware employees go a long way in identifying and preventing threats, there are still threats that may be invisible to the human eye. Deploying an email security solution, in addition to the security provided by your email provider, is an important step in keeping threats away from your employees' mailboxes. The myth that email security solutions are for enterprises has been debunked over and over, and it's high time that small businesses adopt these solutions, too. 

Essential email security features

When you pick an email security solution, there are a few basic features essential to ensuring protection for email accounts. Let's take a look at some of them. 

Impersonation detection

Security solutions should be able to spot spoofing attempts. This includes detecting domain impersonation and username fraud. With VIP fraud detection, certain C-suite employees’ usernames cannot be used in incoming emails. Similarly, with domain spoofing prevention, any lookalike domains of popular domains added to your list will be spotted and handled according to your customizations. This helps keep spoofing attempts at bay. 

Advanced phishing protection

Impersonation is usually the first step in a larger phishing attempt. In phishing emails, threat actors create a sense of urgency and demand a sensitive action to be taken. With advanced content and intent analysis, as well as sender reputation checks, the security solution should be able to detect the nature of the email by spotting any anomalies. Such emails should be flagged and reported to the administrator, in addition to keeping the emails away from mailboxes.

URL and attachment protection

Most phishing and malware attempts happen via a URL embedded in the email body or files attached with the email. An email security solution should inspect all of the suspicious URLs and attachments, ensuring that there is no virus or malware code present within them. Most security solutions offer options such as URL protection and attachment analysis by sandboxing the links and attachments. They test the behavior in a secure sandbox environment, and only after verifying that it's legitimate is the email allowed to pass through to the intended recipient. 

User alerts

In case an email is considered suspicious, the security solution should notify the recipient. Based on the scale of suspicion, security solutions exercise this option for low-confidence threats. A banner is embedded in the email content to notify the recipient about the possible threat in the email, such as an authenticated sender or tracking pixels. The email recipient can then view and engage with the email accordingly, exercising caution.

Authentication checks

Several email authentication protocols, such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, are common today. Configuring an action for emails that fail these checks adds extra security for your users' mailboxes. Sometimes, threat actors tamper with emails in transit, and the resultant email at the recipient end could be a spoofed email. Having strict policy controls to identify these authentication measures spots these emails.

Post-delivery processing

Some URLs or attachments in emails turn malicious after they've reached recipients' mailboxes. To identify these attempts, time-of-click protection and post-delivery spam processing features are vital. This ensures that emails are legitimate even after delivery and verifies URLs when a user clicks on them. Additionally, if an email is found suspicious due to certain parameters, all similar emails with the same parameters will be removed from users' mailboxes.

Detailed threat reports

Every business that's starting out learns the ropes as they go. This doesn't just apply as a general business rule but even with security. To identify common patterns and high-risk users, it's important to have detailed threat reports and dashboards. The admins can spot the most common threats, the users who're at risk, and take action accordingly. This lets admins customize their security controls and tighten the policies based on their organization's needs.

Wrapping up

Cybercriminals don’t discriminate by company size; they look for the easiest way in. For small businesses, that’s often an unprotected inbox. The assumption that email is “secure enough” is precisely what threat actors count on.

Small businesses may not have the resources of large enterprises, but they can improve security by focusing on the basics: Tightening email authentication, enabling MFA, training employees to spot red flags, and choosing a security solution that fits both their scale and budget. After all, securing emails means protecting your operations, customers, and credibility, and that's not just a good-to-have; it's a must-have.