September 22, 2016

Web Email Migration? Beware Of Unintentional Data Spoliation!

By CloudTweaks

Cloud Email Migration In today’s litigious society, preserving your company’s data is a must if you (and your legal team) want to avoid hefty fines for data spoliation. But what about when you move to the cloud? Of course, you’ve probably thought of this already. You’ll have a migration strategy in place and you’ll carefully […]

Cloud Email Migration

In today’s litigious society, preserving your company’s data is a must if you (and your legal team) want to avoid hefty fines for data spoliation.

But what about when you move to the cloud?

Of course, you’ve probably thought of this already. You’ll have a migration strategy in place and you’ll carefully select migration vendors to help you get there. All that remains is following the plan, right?

Everything going well, your valuable data will be migrated without a hitch and will be at your fingertips just in case legal or compliance issues arise.

But what if it doesn’t? What if, when you go to pull-up company records, your data is corrupted or not there at all?

That’s when the headache starts. Your legal team starts knocking on your door, compliance officers look to point their fingers at one of your team, and you face a hefty fine for data spoliation.

Oops.

As much as I’d like to say I’m painting a dystopian picture that has very little foothold in reality… that’s just not the case.

Just ask UBS Warburg, West and Phillip Morris.

Now, I’m not an expert on all things data migration, but I do know a thing or two about the backbone of corporate communications: email.

Seemingly innocuous, email is the kind of thing many don’t tend to think much about. You send, receive, agonize over and trash thousands of emails a year. But it’s just email right? How difficult can it be to migrate it to a new cloud service?

The truth is, it’s pretty darn difficult.

Sure, there are lots of email migration vendors out there, waving their hands in the air and jumping up and down saying: “Pick me! Pick me!” (full disclosure: I work for Fookes Software and our product Aid4Mail is right there jumping and waving with the best of them). But how many of them can you really trust?

The fact is, converting email accurately is incredibly complex and we’ve seen very few vendors actually do it well.

Here are just some of the issues we’ve seen come up with poorly converted emails, all of which could result in data spoliation sanctions:

  • Entire folders of emails skipped because of a few special characters in the folder name
  • Unable to render special characters or character based languages (like Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew)
  • Lost attachments
  • Alteration of the SMTP header, this means:
    • Loss of original sent, received and stored dates
    • Loss of email addresses
    • Loss of status information (read, unread etc)
  • Emails being skipped as they’re too large

We even have an example for you:

figure_1

figure_2

And here’s another one:

figure_3

figure_4

So to put this into context, let’s say you produce consumer electronics. You’ve just launched a flagship device after a few years of planning and development. Everyone’s thrilled!

BUT there’s an issue with the battery. It overheats and catches fire in certain circumstances.

A few of your customers’ houses burnt down, a couple of cars caught on fire and around 20 people suffered from burns.

One of the burn victims has leaked some inside information, and now they want to sue you for negligence. The plaintiff is saying you knew about the battery issue and chose not to do anything about so as not to jeopardize the launch.

You’re not worried, you can prove that no one knew anything about it. So, you go back into your archives to pull up all the relevant communication between the project team and your Chinese battery supplier.

That’s when you see that all the emails between the China-based purchasing manager and the battery supplier are all question marks and blank spaces.

The sent date is showing as after the received date and all the emails look like they’re unread.

This, my friends, is data spoliation. Sure it’s not your fault, but you’ll still get sanctioned.

So, what’s the moral of this cautionary tale? Test, test and test again before you choose ANY migration application to move your email to the cloud.

Taking the time now to thoroughly test the application in all scenarios before you commit will pay off in the long run.

By Katie Cullen Montgomerie

Katie is the marketing and communications manager for Fookes Software, the developers of email migration software Aid4Mail.

CloudTweaks

Established in 2009, CloudTweaks is recognized as one of the leading authorities in cloud connected technology information, resources and thought leadership services. Contact us for ways on how to contribute and support our dedicated cloud community.

5 Azure Cost Management Strategies

What Is Azure Cost Management? Azure cost management refers to the practices and processes that [...]
Read more
Steve Prentice

Get Smarter – The Era of Microlearning 

The Era of Microlearning Becoming employable and then staying employable requires ongoing, up to date [...]
Read more

AI at the Gate: Navigating the Future of Cybersecurity with SonicWall’s Bobby Cornwell

Navigating the Future of Cybersecurity In the face of the digital age’s advancements, AI’s role [...]
Read more

A.I. is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be…At Least Not Yet!

Exploring AI’s Potential: The Gap Between Aspiration and Reality Recently Samsung releases its new Galaxy [...]
Read more

Exploring SaaS Directories: The Path to Optimal Software Selection

Exploring the Landscape of SaaS Directories SaaS directories are vital in today’s digital age, serving [...]
Read more
Metasploit-Penetration-Testing-Software-Pen-Testing-Security

Leading Cloud Vulnerability Scanners

Vulnerability Scanners Cyber security vulnerabilities are a constant nuisance and it certainly doesn’t help with [...]
Read more

SPONSORS

Interviews and Thought Leadership

Jeremy Smillie

Securing the Future: Insights from DevSecOps Expert, Jeremy Smillie

Welcome to another insightful discussion on CloudTweaks. Today, we have the privilege of delving into the dynamic intersection of DevOps, Security, and Tokenization with a seasoned expert in the field, [...]
Read more
Algirdas Stasiūnaitis

The Future of Cybersecurity: Insights from Cyber Upgrade’s Founders

AI and Cybersecurity: Innovations and Challenges In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, where artificial intelligence and cybersecurity shape the future of our digital world, CloudTweaks is pleased to present [...]
Read more

How AI Machine Learning Is Enhancing Customer Experience Across Industries

Elevating Customer Satisfaction: AI’s Impact in Every Sector Recent years have witnessed an incredible transformational leap with regard to Artificial [...]
Read more

How AI is strengthening XDR to consolidate tech stacks

Deciphering weak telemetry signals by using AI to analyze behaviors and detect threats in real time is the future of [...]
Read more

Embracing Governance to Navigate 2024’s Tech Trends

Mastering Governance Strategies for Success The start of a new year is a fitting time for goal-setting, and IT managers [...]
Read more

SPONSOR PARTNER

Explore top-tier education with exclusive savings on online courses from MIT, Oxford, and Harvard through our e-learning sponsor. Elevate your career with world-class knowledge. Start now!
© 2024 CloudTweaks. All rights reserved.