Herald Sun: The Smart Word on Securing Your Email

June 26, 2009

THE Ute-gate affair shows just how damaging an errant email can be.

Type your content here...THE Ute-gate affair shows just how damaging an errant email can be.

It's not just a problem for politicians: the risks of identity theft and privacy breaches are shared by everyone with an inbox.

Spies, criminals, terrorists, business competitors, hackers and script kiddies have learned to exploit the internet for their own nefarious ends.

Aside from the Government, big listed companies dealing with market-sensitive information and industries such as healthcare and insurance that handle people's personal details are among the most exposed.

But we don't have to tempt fate every time we click the send button. While technology has created the threat, it also has provided a solution.

Bob Janacek is the New Jersey-based founder of secure email company Datamotion Inc.

He is the main architect of the company's secure registered email system -- a database that monitors all messages sent and received within an organisation through tracking, messenger markers and digital fingerprints.

In the case of Ute-gate, for example, the system would have made it much more difficult to concoct the now-notorious OzCar email.

In a standard email you can just type what you want in the header -- I could be Mickey Mouse or Bill Gates, Mr Janacek told BusinessDaily.

"But with a secure email, your credential -- name and password -- sets your form.

When you log into your workstation, that credential is used for secure email."" "

The database also protects emails sent to and from an organisation from prying eyes in cyberspace.

I look at standard email as if the government is doing its business by sending postcards to each other through the postal system, Mr Janacek said.

"Typically there's a dozen hops through universities and internet service providers that you've never even heard of before it gets to the other side.

It's presenting itself through their equipment in the clear all the way through. "

"If I want to look at what's going on in the government I'll just put a filter 'from:*rudd' and I'll save to the hard drive.

Now I know what's happening at the highest levels of government."" "

Mr Janacek says Australia lags behind the US by about 10 years when it comes to secure email systems.

But, even though the OzCar scandal has brought the risks of email on to the front page of newspapers, the threat has been lurking beyond the public view for years.

People who are out there snooping aren't going to tell you that they're snooping, Mr Janacek said.