Security is important for your business. You don’t want prying eyes snooping on your data or accessing your private communications.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of messages sent via email and text are vulnerable to unauthorized access. The Center for Strategic & International Studies estimates that 82% of total communications traffic is accessible to hackers, law enforcement, and other entities.
The best way to protect your corporate communications from unwanted access is to adopt some sort of secure messaging solution. But how can you find the most secure messaging solution for your business? Here are five questions to ask when you’re evaluating encrypted messaging solutions:
1. Does It Use End-to-End Encryption?
Traditional SMS text messaging is one of the least secure communications technologies available today. SMS messaging is insecure because it’s not encrypted. The lack of encryption means that the contents of any given message can be viewed by just about any person or entity intercepting that message—cell phone carriers, hackers, law enforcement agencies, even governments.
Just as bad, SMS messaging carries a lot of metadata regarding who’s doing the texting and from where. This type of information, if accessed by a third party, can be just as damaging as the contents of the message itself.
The most effective way to secure business communications is to encrypt all messages that are sent or received. In essence, end-to-end encryption works by converting the original message to a special code, which is then secured by a software lock. Only the two people at either end of the conversation, the sender and the recipient, have the keys to unlock, decrypt, and read the message. Anyone intercepting that message midstream simply can’t unlock and read it.
Unfortunately, normal SMS messaging is not encrypted. Neither are messages sent by many of the most popular consumer messaging apps, including Skype, Slack, and Snapchat. For the best security, you need to turn to messaging solutions that employ end-to-end encryption, such as iMessage, Signal, WhatsApp, or Wickr.
2. Does It Collect Your Data?
Many messaging apps collect and store all the messages sent over their systems. Some apps don’t store the messages themselves but do store metadata, which contains information about who is sending a message, when, and for how long.
Even if stored data or metadata is encrypted (and it often isn’t), this represents a security risk if the data is stolen or hacked. For optimal security, you want a messaging solution, such as Wickr, that does not store messages or collect user data. Wickr has no access to user data (it’s all encrypted with the users keys) so they can’t collect it even if they wanted.
3. Is It Enterprise-Ready?
Consumer messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp are great for texting with your friends and family, but they’re not designed to work across a large enterprise. Large companies and organizations need messaging solutions that can be managed and configured for the enterprise’s needs.
Enterprise-wide communication solutions need to embrace both one-on-one messaging and group messaging. The latter is important for team collaboration, which often needs to include text, voice, and video messaging.
Enterprise-ready messaging solutions, such as Wickr Enterprise, offer a variety of hosting and deployment options. Wickr offers both on-premise and cloud-based hosting options. It also seamlessly integrates with various IT workflows and offers a single-view network dashboard to help manage all essential operations.
4. Does It Meet Compliance Standards?
Most enterprises must comply with a variety of industry, governmental, and even global regulations. Consumer messaging apps seldom meet these rigid compliance requirements, especially in regard to security.
The more compliance issues your company has to deal with, the more important it is to employ an enterprise messaging solution designed to meet those requirements. Wickr Enterprise, for example, offers record-keeping compliance functionality to ensure accountability with all applicable requirements, including HIPAA, FINRA, FOIA, and more.
5. What Additional Features Does It Offer?
A messaging solution can and should deliver more than just simple text messaging. Enterprises demand full-featured solutions that fill all manner of communication and collaboration needs.
For example, Wickr’s communication platform offers useful features such as voice calling, video calling, screen sharing, file transfer, Single Sign On (SSO) and Mobile Device Management (MDM) integration, full administrative controls, and more.
Wickr Is Your Full-Featured Encrypted Messaging Solution
As you can see, Wickr’s various messaging products—Wickr Me, AWS Wickr, and Wickr Enterprise—offer a variety of features in a secure, end-to-end encrypted environment. Contact us to learn more about how Wickr can meet your company’s secure communication and collaboration needs.
For the best encrypted messaging and team collaboration solution, download Wickr today!