Regaining control by empowering people

Email is a vital channel, indeed the preferred choice, of communications in companies today. Although more fanciful headlines would have us believe that email is on the verge of extinction, the reality is that email is embedded in company culture and will remain a core communications channel. In fact, studies suggest that over 80 of corporate information is now stored in emails, including attachments. Social networks and mobile devices have transformed the landscape of personal communication. Workers from Generation Gmail have grown up with this technology and now want to operate as flexibly at work as they do at home. To achieve this, employees mix and match technologies, putting corporate security under threat. Getting employees to care about the risks is only part of the solution - employers must take responsibility for closing this generation gap, argues Nathaniel Borenstein of Mimecast. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.