Email errors and security breaches: time to take back control or face the consequences warns Nexor

February 2003

'Accidentally forwarding an email containing idle gossip is one thing, distributing national secrets is another,' says Humphrey Browning, Head of Technical Consultancy at Nexor

- Email Security Breach Gives Devonshire Schoolgirl MoD and Pentagon Secrets -

26 February 2003 – Nexor today advised government and enterprise to regain control of email systems or risk information chaos. The warning comes in the week that saw Claire McDonald, a Devonshire schoolgirl, hit the headlines for receiving sensitive emails from the Pentagon and other government organisations for more than six months, despite repeatedly alerting the senders.

This latest example of email indiscretion follows hot on the heels of countless other email blunders including: Jo Moores and Stephen Byers 'bury news'; Cherie Blair and the Peter Foster exchange; Clair Swire and Mr Chait's intimate exchange; Dell's dismissal of an employee for wrongly directing an email; and Chevron paying $2.2 million to settle a sexist email law suit. Cases such as these are currently being highlighted in a new BBC series entitled Emails you wish you’d never sent.

Humphrey Browning, head of technical consulting, Nexor, said: 'We are not at all surprised that this latest error has occurred. Email is quite simply spiralling out of control. Cases like this highlight the immediate need to act now and put solutions and policies in place to ensure this doesn't happen again.'

Nexor is experienced in deploying email solutions that set and define rules for who can send and receive information. Using simple labelling techniques it is also possible to check the content of emails and only allow messages to be sent/received if clearance for an individual has been authorised.

'This still relies on the correct information classification or label being selected, so there is still room for human error. Nexor's formal messaging goes one step further and enables organisations to calculate the classification of a message based upon the number and weight of hit/key words it contains, and to determine if the recipient has the appropriate classification clearance,' finishes Browning.

For further information, please info [at] nexor [dot] com (subject: Nexor%20Press%20Release) (contact Wendy Draper)