Would You Put Sensitive Information on a Postcard?

Probably not…

When you send someone a postcard (remember “snail mail”?), whatever you wrote is visible to anyone who handles it from where it was mailed all the way to the final recipient.  So, of course, you wouldn’t want to put sensitive or personal information on a postcard.

Very similar to a postcard, email can generally be read by anyone along the path from where it was sent to its final destination.  In fact, multiple copies of the same email might be stored by mail servers transferring the message along the way.

In general, just like a postcard, sensitive and personal information should be kept out of email.  Before sending an email, consider the postcard analogy and ask yourself if the email contains information you don’t want others to see.  If it does, you should remove that content before clicking the ‘Send’ button.  A good “rule of thumb” for email is that if you don’t want anyone but the recipient to see the contents, you probably shouldn’t send it.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month