The Data
Tools like Thunderbird and Outlook are mature software products, with some great built-in tools and features, and it genuinely helps make our day-to-day work run smoothly and efficiently, however that can create some risks if we're not careful.
When you start typing an email address into the "To", "CC", or "BCC" fields in an email, most software very helpfully starts to suggest people or email addresses that you've previously used.
This can be a great shortcut, particularly if you're emailing a lot of people, but it does mean that it's really easy to pick the wrong name, especially if you have a number of people with the same or similar names in your email history.
It's important to double check names and email addresses before hitting "Send" on any email, but even more important if you're using auto-completed or auto-suggested email addresses.
Recent Data
The Information Commissioner's report for 2021/2022 shows that the single largest cause of data protection breaches, is data being emailed to an incorrect recipient:
- Data emailed to incorrect recipient 16.87%
- Other non-cyber incident 15.64%
- Unauthorised access 11.71%
- Phishing 10.03%
- Data posted or faxed to incorrect recipient 8.53%
- Ransomware 7.17%
- Loss/theft of paperwork or data left in… [public place] 6.79%
- Failure to redact 4.34%
- Failure to use bcc 3.09%
- Verbal disclosure of personal data 3.07%
- Other cyber incident 3.00%
- Hardware/software misconfiguration 2.31%
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/our-information/annual-reports/
ico.org.uk
View our annual reports.