FOCUS BRIEF
Introduction
When was the last time you wanted to throw your fax machine out the window? If you’re like most managers and office workers, faxes might be first on your list of Top 10 Most Annoying Machines. Half the time they don’t send correctly, or they’re busy when you try to send.
Don’t throw your fax out just yet, though. Faxing still offers some important advantages over emailing. In some ways, faxes are actually more secure than email.
Analysis
1. Email attachments can harbor viruses. Many administrators feel that fax is slow and inefficient, no longer conducive to today’s fast-paced business. But email attachments can harbor viruses that can debilitate your computers and leave your IT department struggling to reinstall software and beat the clock against an infection spreading across your network.
According to many security researchers, nearly every common email attachment file format can harbor a virus — Acrobat PDFs, Word and Excel documents, application files and more. The widespread use of email attachments leads many office workers to feel complacent about what they open, so they often aren’t careful enough and infect their computers before they know it. If the alternative is a fatal virus in your network, taking a couple of extra minutes to fax instead of email a document might be worth the hassle.
2. Faxes don’t get blocked like emails. Because emails can harbor viruses and are a target for hackers, many companies have filters that scan and reroute messages directly to the junk mailbox. Some employees might wait and wait for an attachment that never comes — because it’s been blocked for being too large, poorly named or another reason. When the system falsely identifies an email as junk, it’s called a “false positive,” and the mistake can slow down business. By the time the sender calls to verify whether the email was received, a project might be late or a sales opportunity might be missed.
Fax offers the benefit that a message won’t be filtered as “junk” by the network, and it also can’t print corrupted files. Naturally, other problems could occur, for example if someone grabs a fax intended for another colleague. However, as long as colleagues are only sending business-related materials and are honest with one another, this is unlikely to be a problem.
3. Faxes can keep your data private. To most non-tech folks, email feels like it’s just as secure as a fax, or more so. After all, it doesn’t leave pages scattered across the office for snooping co-workers to sift through. However, if you’re performing business as usual, it’s probably OK for your closest office mates to see your faxes. If you’re really worried, you can go hang out by the fax machine and wait for the most important messages to arrive.
In reality, most email isn’t protected from prying eyes either, unless you go out of your way to add encryption. Because email’s not encrypted as it gets transmitted, IT staff or hackers listening in to the transmission can intercept the data and spy on the messages. Fax, on the other hand, is an encrypted transmission. People can’t hack and decode your fax message if you’re using a plain old fax service on the telephone lines.
So, Fax is Better than Email?
Not exactly. Ultimately, fax isn’t the strongest form of security . It still has notable flaws and eventually will be replaced by encrypted email and attachments. In the meantime, though, fax can offer some benefits — and you now have a few reasons to keep your old machine around.
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3 Comments
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Fax is only more secure when you're going from one fax machine directly to another fax machine. If you're using an e-fax gateway -- eFax or the like -- you have to make sure you're using an encrypted connection to retrieve your fax. An e-fax that is automatically delivered via email isn't any more secure than a regular email.
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Flag FlaggedI work in the IT department of a large business, and know for a fact that the versatility of email far exceeds that of faxes. Moreover, faxes are text-based systems, in that they can only produce information in terms of black and white characters, with little nor no gray area (provided, of course, you can shell out some big bucks for a sophisticated machine. Just make sure your sender does the same). Emails can transmit text and photographic quality material with amazing clarity AT NO COST other than what you're paying your current ISP for Internet service. It's much cheaper to buy a scanner than it is to purchase a fax machine. If you have DSL, Fios or cable, you need not have a separate telephone line installed, and you certainly won't tie up the existing one. On the issue on security, almost all the major email providers will scan attachments for viruses. Also, in my ten years of working in this field, I have yet to encounter a virus embedded in a PDF, MS WORD or EXCEL file. I'm not saying it hasn't happen, I never seen it nor do I know anyone who uses email readily who has encounter anything as such. On the subject of having emails accidentally sent to the SPAM bin, all the major email providers will hold this type of suspected email in the separate folder, giving you, the user, a chance to check for mistakes. In truth, the days of contracting a computer virus through the email have pretty much diminished to almost negligible, provided you, the user, use a little bit of common sense: if it looks suspicious DELETE IT FROM YOUR INBOX (or use your virus scanner to check for a malicious threat)!
My company does have a fax machine, which it use a lot. But the majority of the faxes we get are from those individuals or businesses who don't fully understand the concept of emails, or are just too stubborn to change!
Emails are rave of the present and the future, and will eventually, in my opinion, replace that antiquated garbage of a machine we call the fax.
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Flag FlaggedCan’t say I agree with the above:
Fax offers the benefit that a message won’t be filtered as “junk”: Are you kidding? Not in any of the offices I have worked in. Because faxes don’t filter junk, they get bombarded by it. Legitimated faxes get tossed out with the piles ads for weight loss products, training courses, travel deals etc.
Faxes can keep your data private… People can’t hack and decode your fax message. NO WAY!!! A fax is much easier to hack than email. http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/ospp/securityguide/V2comint/Fax.htm#Fax%20Machines
Email attachments can harbor viruses… Okay, but this is only an advantage if you deciding between only using fax OR email. Most people will use both (in part because so few folks are using fax any more). Thus you have already accepted the risk.
There are HUGE security risks with fax.
1. Fax machines tend to be kept in a central location and thus what ever is sent to them is left in the open. No matter how diligent you are with waiting for a fax (and nobody ever does) you can’t be there waiting for something you don’t know is coming – e.g. if your customer sends you a fax at 3am it will be there waiting for everyone who walks by it on their way in to see.
2. 99% of email is of no value to anyone. People keep thousands of useless email (useless to anyone else I mean) thus anyone hacking into an email account has to sort through tons of useless information. Even if they are using key word searches the good stuff is a needle in a haystack. Unlike that fax coversheet marked URGENT and CONFIDENTIAL in big bold letters
3. What do you do with a fax once you receive it? Is your secretary putting in the inbox in your cubical? Is it sitting in a paper folder out on a desk? Physical security is rarely as well thought out or updated as electronic security.
I could go on… but also think of the environmental impact of that hunk plastic, toner and paper.
There is simply no need for fax and it is in fact a security risk that’s just not worth taking. Save yourself the money you’ll spend on paper, toner and service fees and put it toward encryption instead.
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