Performing backups is a vital part of disaster recovery and this is well known by all IT departments. However, another important aspect of archiving emails is the possibility that they will be needed for incident response and data breach audits.
The majority of companies recognise the importance of creating backups but are unaware of their importance in relation to regulatory compliance. Backups can be implemented to restore a network to its pre-breach status and avoid the chance of users not being able to access older files.
Email archives work a bit differently in that they are a copy of email messages that is held in a different location. This means that the emails are not on the existing network so they are not taking up storage space or hindering network speeds. They are also accessible over the web in most cases.
Email archives save metadata that can be implemented in order to efficiently organize records and conduct searches for particular messages in the event of an audit being required during an investigation. As a lot of larger companies are being sent millions of emails on a daily basis this allows for a much cleaner search system to be in place.
In order to be compliant with legislation such as HIPAA and GDPR, among others, companies must maintain archives of messages for a long period of time. As these archives take up a lot of network space it is important to be able to store them elsewhere in case they are needed at some point in the future. Archives fulfil this need and ensure that all regulatory requirements are in place.
It is important to maintain audit trails that can be used to ascertain a vulnerability in the aftermath of a data breach occurring. This will allow third-party software to complete searches and control archive backups. The metadata is used to tag messages with specific words and phrases so that messages will be produced using relevant search queries.
Email Archives Advantages
- Quicker data recovery following a breach, minimizing downtime.
- They can be used for data loss prevention if backups fail or the backup files are corrupted. Archives are a copy of email data, so they can be used as failover during disaster recovery.
- Save network space by holding data on a cloud solution
- Lower costs as cloud storage is much cheaper than housing storage infrastructure on-site.