Click here to learn more about author Cathy Nolan.

No one can deny that email and email hacking was at the center of our recent Presidential election. If nothing else, the American public learned that putting personal information in emails is not much safer than posting it on one of the numerous social media sites. Email hacking has become one of the most common instances of cyber-crime around the world. Even though the penalties for hacking email accounts can be severe, it is extremely hard to track down these cyber-criminals because they run the gambit from computer geeks looking for bragging rights to businesses trying to gain an upper hand in the marketplace by hacking a competitor’s website. Along with criminal rings trying to steal personal information there are also ‘state-sponsored” spies and terrorists looking for vital information or to bring down networks.

American companies are targeted for trade secrets and other sensitive corporate data, and universities for their valuable research and development. Citizens are targeted by identity thieves and children are targeted by online predators. There are even hackers who lock your email and then demand a ransom to unlock it again.

One pundit called the current state of security a ‘cyber-catastrophe’ in the wake of a massive security breach where Yahoo lost the personal information on over 500 million accounts. If you had a Yahoo email or financial account it could be your personal catastrophe because not only did the hackers get your name, address and phone numbers but they also got your birthdate, passwords, security questions and anything else they could glean from stolen emails. A common tactic is for hackers to take usernames and passwords they steal from one site, and then try to log in with them elsewhere, so if you use the same password for multiple accounts you need to upgrade to “strong” passwords and vary them. Admin and 1234 are out–you need a password that has upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, symbols, and is unrelated to your personal life.

I don’t know many people who can live without their email but most people were shaken to learn how vulnerable it is. The companies we work for have always warned us that our email is not “private” and that they have the right to look at what we send and receive, but most of us ignored that warning since we didn’t think anyone would actually take the time of read our messages and the majority of the time what we write at work is pretty dull. However, it now comes as a bit of a shock to learn anything we say in a personal email may be broadcast to the world (ask the people at the DNC).

We should all know to avoid common types of phishing emails like not clicking on suspect links or emails from an unfamiliar source, and not using unsecured Wi-Fi in public places, but here are some additional steps you can take to guard your professional email accounts.

1. Don’t use your personal email account for work and vice-versa. Don’t ever send company documents to your personal accounts as not only are personal accounts more liable to be hacked, but because your employer has the right to monitor all traffic to and from your computer.
2. Assume all your company emails are monitored. Your company might not be the NSA, but they may employ security software that targets certain words to prevent corporate espionage or misuse of proprietary information
3. Refrain from sending anything you wouldn’t want your co-worker or boss to see, and avoid the temptation to “vent” about how misguided you think the company’s policies are.
4. Maintain your professional and private emails on separate devices. Technically your company could seize and wipe any device that has company email data on it.

No, we are not going to give up email but we need to exercise a little more caution in the world of the Internet of Everything. “Everything” includes a lot of malicious cyber-thieves lurking in cyber-space, so remember, it’s best to avoid sending any personal information over email (unless you absolutely have to) and best to guard your professional reputation by remembering your company has a right to see everything you send and receive on your work account.

Finally, remember that cyber-space is vast and those emails you wrote 10-15 years ago could still be floating around somewhere to be discovered when you decide to run for public office! That should make you think twice the next time you send an email.