Beyond Encryption is the financial services industry standard for secure digital communications. We give organisations the freedom to exchange digital information confidently, cost-effectively, and with full compliance, supporting our customers on their digital transformation journey. We’ve built the world’s most secure encrypted communications network, protecting and connecting businesses with our secure email solution, Mailock.

Email remains one of the most common methods businesses use to interact with their clients. In 2022 alone, an estimated 333.2 billion e-mails were sent and received each day, with this figure expected to increase to over 376.4 billion by 2025. However, it is also one of the platforms most susceptible to a data breach.

Mailock is a versatile software platform that enables organisations to send customer communication securely via email. Mailock protects sensitive data through end-to-end encryption and multi-factor recipient authentication capabilities, helping businesses to remain compliant, lower costs, and improve operational efficiencies.

The Mailock add-in enables businesses to extend their M365 capabilities and integrate directly with Outlook. While Microsoft offers their own encryption solution, they have openly disclosed that the Azure Information Protection (AIP) suite is only designed “to prevent accidental misuse and is not a security boundary”. Mailock fills the security gaps in your mail flow, providing complete protection during exchanges of sensitive information.

While Mailock is known for its encryption and authentication capabilities, it also offers additional benefits for businesses. With over 80% of Mailock emails being opened by recipients, 1/3rd within an hour of sending and 2/3rd within the first 24 hours, Mailock encourages high client engagement with important messages.

Mailock also supports businesses in reducing their reliance on print, pack and post, positively affecting their environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact, significantly cutting their carbon footprint and reducing costs and inefficiencies. Since deploying Mailock in late 2019, Life and Pensions provider, Aegon, has saved an estimated 270 tonnes of carbon.

Working with a range of industries, Beyond Encryption’s initial focus began in the financial industry. Mailock supports over 50,000 UK intermediaries, empowering advisors, product manufacturers and service providers to utilise instantaneous digital communication that saves time and money. We work with financial networks such as The Mortgage Advice Bureau, The Right Mortgage and SimplyBiz Group, as well as major household brands such as Aegon, Royal London and Abrdn. Our industry partners include the likes of:

• Paragon Customer Communications (PCC), who are responsible for a large portion of the UK’s print, pack, and post fulfilment.
• Origo, an organisation dedicated to improving the operational efficiency of the UK’s financial sector, with Mailock being the only email solution to integrate with Origo’s Unipass Identity.
• Westcoast, our channel partner and leading IT distributor for global brands, who facilitates the delivery of our Mailock solution to resellers and retailers throughout the UK.

Other products offered by Beyond Encryption include nigel, our document concierge which allows users to securely file private documents and retrieve important information, and Assurescore, BE’s patented solution which analyses data from network interactions to verify customer identity.

Westcoast Cloud, established in 2015 as a subdivision of the Westcoast Group, works with its 700+ partners across UK and IRE to support in their delivery of cloud solutions to end customers.

Now a trusted leader in the cloud industry, Westcoast Cloud prides itself at putting its partners at the centre of everything it does with a focus on relationships, not transactions. From value-added services such as its eLearning platform and white-labelled digital marketing campaigns to multi-channel training, sales enablement and technical support made available when needed, Westcoast Cloud enables partners to achieve and often exceed their business goals.

Already a leading provider of Microsoft cloud solutions in the UK, Westcoast Cloud ensure that their vendor portfolio is constantly evolving. Not only does this allow partners to have access to a broad range of other trusted cloud specialists, cloud service providers and global leaders, but that the needs of their end customers are met in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

Through the hard work of the team and the support of their partners and vendors, Westcoast Cloud has won the CRN Cloud Distributor of the Year award in 2021 and 2022.

We are all aware of the threat that comes along with using the internet. What we are generally less aware of is what exactly they are and what we can do to stop them. Often the answer is not necessarily a technical one, rather it is a combination of best practice from everyone in your organisation combined with a good coherent IT software and hardware strategy.

For many countries October is the official month of raising Cyber Security awareness, including across Europe and the US.

So for each week during October we will look to publish a paper that concentrates on some of the key issues facing businesses and what they can do about them. These papers will look to build your knowledge and understanding and support you in preventing a potential attack.

Anything related to ‘Cyber’ can often be interpreted as something related exclusively to technology hardware or software. The reality is that in addition to this firms have suffered considerably from the reputational damage that accompanies an attack. Confidence can be lost quickly and have an impact on both clients and internal staff. Revenues can be hit hard through fines and the impact on business as usual activities. The paper in week four will look to help you understand how you can help mitigate the impact of a Cyber Security breach.

Some of the fines to large organisations (non-financial services) have been large, with the largest over 700 million euros. But regardless of size the threat continues to increase, the FCA reported a 52% increase in reported attacks in the year to 2021.

With each paper there will be a summary checklist that we hope you will find useful, based around the topics of the week and what we think will help you adopt best practice around these topics. The consistent adoption of best practice across your business will help you prevent an attack.

Consistently it is reported that he most common reason for why Cyber attacks are successful is because of human error. Something you can control and improve by adopting a best practice approach.