GDPR Email Compliance Software : GDPR Email Encryption
“The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires all organizations to research and implement a collection of core security measures, request consent from the data owner to access their personal information, and to protect personal data and the privacy rights of EU citizens.”
GDPR compliance will impact every business and organization inside and outside the European Union(EU). This compliance mandate is driven by the trust between EU organizations and their citizens through data protection and respect for privacy.
Building trust through GDPR compliance, consent, and visibility to cyberattacks through proper discloser and cybersecurity management continues to become a clear driving force for countries in the EU to enable the protection of their citizen’s data.
“GDPR compliance for data protection also covers information and data security within email service offerings, such as names, email addresses, attachments, and conversations.”
Trustifi, a global leader in advanced email security software platform powered by an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) cloud-based platform, assists several customers with the ability to show GDPR compliance and management requirements by providing a one-click-to-encrypt management feature and a guide for all compliance mandates, including CCPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR.
After reading this blog, would you like to learn more about this GDPR compliance software solution for simplifying your data protection requirements, identifying possible email attacks, meeting regulation requirements, lowering risk, and mitigate email phishing attacks across your enterprise network?
Click here to request a demo and access to view the GDPR guide of this platform for your business with the Trustifi email security software and compliance experts today. Learn more about how this email security vendor can assist with GDPR compliance, help manage risk, and why customers trust Trustifi!
Email Encryption Technology–General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
By default, GDPR compliance regulations require data protection software and security operations management, including preventing access to personal user data and protecting against complex cyberattacks that lead to data breaches. Regardless of size or yearly revenue, businesses must understand the impact and importance of protecting access to customer data and deploying proper security software management tools. If personal data lives inside a company database, web application, email system, archive, or a cloud-based backup depository, the data needs to be encrypted in transit and at rest.
Article 5 of GDPR requirements mandates all companies to adopt and learn about personal data protection software tools and proper security management frameworks, develop processes and procedures for continuous vulnerability assessment of all critical systems, and develop methods for automated reporting to ensure total compliance. Technical functions include email encryption software, data loss prevention, multifactor authentication systems, management of anti-virus software, and anti-malware cybersecurity products. A third-party firm specializing in penetration and vulnerability risk assessments should have access to validate these controls, including email encryption policies.
Email Retention Under Article 5 (E, F) and 17
GDPR article 5 (e) established that firms need to learn how to retain email and other content forms until the information is relevant. Article 17 (the right to be forgotten) also allows data owners to request the removal of their content because accurate and effective email retention policies with the ability to keep or remove email content are critical to meeting Article 17.
Organizations must also comply with Article 5 (f), which mandates that all organizations protect all people's data from accidentally being deleted, damaged, or digitally lost. Microsoft and Google's email security software platforms, cloud infrastructure, and other cybersecurity solutions provided by firms, including Trustifi, must comply with Articles 5 and 17 of the GDPR.
Fines For GDPR Violations
Article 83 of the GDPR compliance allows fines to be imposed on any business violating this data privacy law. The process for determining fines has two tiers:
Tier 1
Less severe infractions of articles 8, 11, 25-39, 42, and 42 could result in a fine of 10 million euros or 2% of the firm's global revenues. Infringement of these articles includes failure to complete assessments of current cybersecurity data protection software capabilities, inability to maintain and sustain proper security operations management, and reporting violations of GDPR compliance articles to the EU governing bodies.
Tier 2
Organizations that violate GDPR compliance in several articles 44-49 face a maximum fine of 20 million EURO or 4% of the organization's global revenue. These articles specifically mandate the protection of personal data transmitted across borders and outside the EU with consent from the data owner.
Each EU country regulates the amount of fines, but all European Union members have the authority to issue fines based on the infraction level.
Each EU member assesses the fines based on the following guidelines within GDPR compliance:
- Identify the infringement: How did it happen? Was the incident accidental or intentional? How many people were affected? And what was the impact of the damage that occurred?
- Consent and Intent: Did access to the data security result in an intentional or negligent data breach by the organization protecting the information?
- Completion of Remediation: Did the company remediate the security breach by leveraging capabilities per GDPR, including the ability to show automated incident response and software remediation capabilities?
- Steady State Readiness: Was the company or service provider technically and operationally ready for cyberattacks, including providing a guide to their security operations plan and a collection of artifacts from the breach?
- Cybersecurity Historical Track Record: Have platform providers ever suffered GDPR compliance data breaches resulting in identity theft, data exfiltration, product failures, or unauthorized access to user information on a corporate device?
- Cooperation: Did the management team, company GDPR compliance team, and risk management resources cooperate with the member state cyber investigation team regarding a recent data breach?
- Notification: Did the service provider notify the member state authorities of the data breach scale within 4 days of the event, as the GDPR requires?
Based on the results, the organization could be subject to a tier 1 or 2 level fine.
The Biggest Fines
In 2024 alone, GDPR fines totaled 1.64 billion Euros, and the GDPR fines imposed on META management (Facebook) and its companies totaled nearly 1.2 billion Euros.
Here is a list of organizations fined for GDPR-related violations:
1. Amazon (2021) — €746 million
“The online retailer’s Luxembourg EU headquarters tracked user data without acquiring appropriate consent from users or providing the means to opt out of this tracking, resulting in Amazon receiving the largest GDPR fine to date.”
2. META Ireland (2022) — €405 million
The GDPR fined META Ireland for lawfully processing a minor's information without consent within their main product. Several teens between 13 and 17 had their information displayed publicly on their Instagram accounts.
3. TikTok (2023) — €354 Million
The Irish Data Protection (DPC) investigated TikTok and its various services offered to younger users without proper consent per GDPR. The DPC focused on how TikTok performed age verification and communication directly with minors.
Role Of Data Loss Prevention In GDPR Compliance
Staying compliant with GDPR requires several protection layers, including critical cybersecurity software management tools, email security for business and marketing emails, outbound email scanning, data loss prevention (DLP) functions, email encryption feature, security automation, and updated policies, a guide to their security operations, and documentation supporting proof of compliance.
Every technical function has a purpose, and organizations wanting to be GDPR compliant must learn to manage these resources 24/7.
The DLP product is essential to prevent GDPR breaches.
Hackers focus their attacks on several attack vectors, including data exfiltration, disruption of operations, and embedding malware tools like ransomware to create long-term persistent attacks. Disrupted operations and ransomware continue to impact EU companies significantly. These attack vectors continue to be part of a data breach kill chain. Organizations need to identify these kill chains proactively before they become fully executed.
Customer data exfiltration can happen through email, endpoint, host, or physical insider threat-coping data to a USB. Preventing data loss through email is one of many features embedded with Trustifi's cloud-based email security platform.
Firms leveraging DLP from Trustifi benefit from an AI-powered software platform designed to scan all outbound email traffic, looking for keywords, sensitive data within the message, or confidential content information embedded within the attachment. Trustifi will view and scan these emails and automatically block hackers or insider threats from sending them out.
GDPR Email Encryption Through DLP
Along with DLP, email encryption software is another critical technical feature required by Article 5 within GPDR. All data at rest or in transit needs to stay encrypted.
- Email encryption is an example of an appropriate technical measure.
- All companies should have a policy governing how to manage email encryption.
- Training all administrators and engineering on implementing and supporting email encryption.
Combined with DLP, the Trustifi outbound shield platform can scan a message and discover possible sensitive information. One automated response capability is Trustifi's ability to encrypt the message before allowing it to proceed to the recipients. Using policy-based custom templates, Trustifi empowered users through their simplified management console to enable email encryption and DLP to prevent GDPR violations.
Administrators can learn and manage DLP within the Trustifi management console without disrupting users. Trustifi allows everyone to download how-to guides to help with setup and management.
Trustifi also allows users to encrypt their messages with a single click. Its single management console handles these security capabilities and features, such as unified reporting and notifications.
One Click To Comply - The Trustifi Way
Staying compliant with GDPR compliance requires a continuous review of the law's mandates. Organizations spend considerable funding reviewing, management oversight, and operationalizing their various cybersecurity security functions to align with GDPR protection laws.
One of the Trustifi platform's profoundly essential management features is its ease-of-use "one click to comply" capabilities. Trustifi has several pre-configured national and global compliance policies within the unified platform console.
Security admins wanting to enable various compliance policies simply click on the ones that align with their organization's legal and compliance requirements. Other solutions offering similar features require extended resources to manage, review, and align steps, but Trustifi enabled this feature with a single click.
What Should Ease-of-User Matter Regarding DLP and Email Encryption Supporting GDPR?
Human error risk continues to be one of many causes of GDRP violations. Gartner reported within their latest blog, "By 2025, lack of talent, the inability to learn, and human failure will be responsible for over half of significant cyber incidents and increases in organizational risk."
Failure to enable DLP, email encryption, and other security solutions used for GDPR will lead to accidental customer data breaches and additional workload on the organization's risk management resources. Therefore, all businesses must ensure the ease of use of any security operational management.
Here is an example of known human errors leading to a security breach:
- Misconfigured Software Settings resulting in cookie sessions becoming hijacked
- Individuals becoming lured by social engineering
- Recycled stored and previously used passwords
- Poor Encryption and faulty policy templates from the vendor
- Software Vulnerabilities
- Use of Default Passwords from the vendor across critical systems and user devices
A successful outbound email security strategy leveraging enterprise email encryption software must be easy to manage, learn, and use while helping to lower risk while meeting GDPR standards. Most popular email encryption and DLP solutions require passwords to a portal or require a receiver to set up an account before receiving the secured messages.
These technical requirements can lead to human error or exposure of outgoing emails, leading to losing trust in the solution.
Why do Customers Trust Trustifi For GDPR Compliance?
Clients trust Trustifi because they listen to their customers' requests for features and enhancements, develop the right platform to service many markets, including SMBs, use the correct pricing model, and provide additional features for free to help meet GDPR compliance mandates, lower risk, and assist with organizational risk management.
Simplified and unified management powered by AI and easy-to-follow processes makes Trustifi's solution ideal for any business needing to meet GPDR compliance.
Trustifi offers free email encryption and DLP to assist customers with GDPR compliance. Trustifi’s global engineering will work with any client who requests to enable these capabilities for free.
