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Posts Tagged ‘escrow’

HIPAA-Compliant Secure Email: Understanding Encryption

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

Email encryption is an important topic to understand when evaluating HIPAA-compliant, secure email vendors. Encryption is an addressable standard for HIPAA compliance, but if you send sensitive information via email, encryption is the easiest way to meet the standard.

The two most common email encryption methods include SMTP TLS and Secure Portal Pick Up. This article will discuss their differences and guide users on selecting the right option for HIPAA-compliant secure email.

secure email sending

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New Feature: Secure Email Tagline

Thursday, June 23rd, 2022

LuxSci is introducing a new email tagline feature to inform recipients that email messages are secured. This helps build trust and increase confidence with less tech-savvy recipients who do not understand how email encryption works.

secure email tagline

TLS Encryption

TLS encryption is now widely supported by the most popular email providers. As a result, more organizations are choosing to send emails containing sensitive data with TLS encryption. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. TLS encryption is permitted under HIPAA and most compliance regulations.
  2. It’s easier to use and does not require recipients to log in to portals to access their messages.
  3. The open and response rates are higher on TLS encrypted messages.

However, using only TLS to encrypt emails can be confusing to the laypeople receiving them. While it’s easy to use and “invisible,” that can be concerning when transmitting sensitive information. If it looks like a regular email, recipients may be concerned that the organization does not care about the security of their personal information. This perception can negatively impact the business and dissuade people from using digital channels.

Introducing a New Email Tagline

For these reasons, all Email Hosting, Secure Connector, Secure High Volume Email, and Secure Marketing customers who send emails encrypted via SecureLine will have a small tagline at the bottom of the email that indicates the message is secure. It looks like this:

message secured by LuxSci tagline

This tagline builds trust and lets the recipient know that the company has taken steps to secure sensitive data. If you are an existing customer, visit your email settings or contact Customer Support to enable this feature. New customers will automatically have the tagline enabled when sending SecureLine encrypted emails.

Has Your Email Been Read? Read Receipts and Web Bugs

Wednesday, July 1st, 2020

 

Customers often ask how they can know if a specific recipient has read a message. Typically, this is done by requesting a “Read Receipt” when sending the message. However, read receipts are unreliable. Spammers use techniques such as HTML “web bug” tracking to see if you have read an email message and thus if your email address is valid and ripe for more spamming; this is also unreliable. LuxSci’s SecureLine Escrow service includes a 100% reliable Read Receipt function that can be used when it is essential to know if someone has read a message. It also allows for message retraction (removing further access to an email message).

This article explains how to determine if a message is read, shows how each method works and discusses the pros and cons.

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Ask Erik: Is misaddressed email a HIPAA breach?

Friday, December 8th, 2017

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Next Generation Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with LuxSci Secure Email

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) describes a plan for companies to control the sending of sensitive data.  E.g. this can include controls to stop the flow of sensitive data or to ensure that sensitive data is always well-encrypted (for compliance) when sent.

In the context of email, DLP is usually achieved through the following formula:

  1. Construct a list of words, phrases, or patterns that, if they are present in an email, signify an email message that may contain sensitive information.
  2. Have all outbound email scanned for these words, phrases, or patterns
  3. For messages that match, take action:
    1. Block: Refuse to send the message, or
    2. Encrypt: Ensure that the message is encrypted
    3. Audit: (and maybe send a copy of the message to an “auditor”)

This classic DLP system is available through many email providers and has been available at LuxSci for many years as well. However, it does have a glaring limitation — no matter how complete and complex your DLP pattern list is, it is almost certain that some messages containing sensitive information will not quite match (or the information will be embedded in attachments that can’t be searched properly).  If they do not match, then they will escape in a way that may be considered a breach.

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