AuthorAvi Elkoni

“Beware of hackers!” everyone says. “Before you send sensitive information think about how you send it; consider information security, encryption, firewalls and secure messaging, because hackers are out to get your precious information!” This is true, but hackers should not be your only concern when considering the safety and privacy of sensitive information. Here are four more characters you should be very worried about:

The over-sharer

There is one in every family and in every department at work; No, Mr. Jones, there was no need to forward the client’s sensitive information to the entire department for comments! That information was disclosed under NDA and had no purpose or value shared beyond the initial team tracking it will be a major headache now – thank you. And Aunt Sally, those vacation pictures were not meant to be shared with the whole family! I told Cousin Lucy that I was not going to her baby shower because work is “insane”. Now she knows that I was kicking it with the wife and kids in Cancun. Thanks so much for that! Thanksgiving dinner should be fun… The over-sharer’s motto is “sharing (information) is caring”. They don’t stop to think about the consequences of distributing private information, especially if it isn’t theirs.

The chronic “Oops!” (aka “fat fingers”)

Unlike the over-sharer, the chronic “Oops!” does not mean to share your information. They mean to reply to it, but accidentally replay to all or forward to the wrong employee, or worse, customer or customer list. They may mean to delete it, but instead post it publicly to Facebook. They are just as horrified as you are to discover what happened, they really didn’t mean to, it just… happened. The ability to recall or un-post a mistake to limit exposure is, well, limited. And on a mobile phone where tiny menus are filled with endless sharing options, can you really blame the chronic “Oops!”? We’ve all been there at times, perhaps not as frequently as others, but we have.

The Information Hoarder

This person probably prefers to think of themselves as an “Information Curator” but the sad fact is that they are a hoarder, plain and simple. You might not care so much that their inbox boasts upwards of 235,000 messages, until those messages come back to bite you. That early design idea that developers kicked around three years ago and have long since abandoned? They have it. The late night disagreement about management execution, written out of frustration that you wish was never put in writing? You might have forgotten about it the next morning but they still hold on to it three years later. You send it, they keep it, and they are never ever letting go of it. Keeping notes is all well and fine, but these are your messages, should the bytes of the past always come back to bite you?

The Past You

Yes, you, yourself, from the past. Not the very distant past either. Perhaps it is you two minutes ago sending a premature notice to a business partner, or jumping the gun with a piece of news that, you have just learned, is not quite ready for release. You cannot control “past you” any more than you can control a co-worker or relative. And the worst part? You only have yourself to blame. With text, email and chat, regrets are not easily accommodated. You hit “send” and it is done. You cannot un-ring the bell. Once you send it, it is gone. If only you could reach out and grab it back! It’s probably still boldly unread. But no…

And really, why should YOU not be in control of YOUR messages?

At Vaporstream we believe that you should be in control of your information, even when you send it to other people. Our Sender Control philosophy means no sharing, no copying and no hoarding. It also means that you can reach out and grab your information back at any point. You decide when it is no longer relevant or needed. If you want to find out more about how Vaporstream helps protect from the not only the hacker, but the over-sharer, the chronic “oops!”, the information hoarder and the past you, contact us or request a demo.